Best way to have fun in Los Angeles?

Should I move to Los Angeles to pursue acting?

• Okay, I know I'm going to get many eye-rolls for this, but I have to ask an impartial, unbiased audience this rather lengthy question. I am a 21 year old, attractive male college student, and I have a dilemma. But before I just jump right into it, I'd like to paint a bit of a mental picture of myself to you. I've always been an artistic type, growing up. I used to write endless novels of my own, and I was an avid pencil-sketch enthusiast. In high school, I became a bit of an outcast (mostly due to my introverted nature). I started playing sports, which I was decent enough at, but never really enjoyed. I made friends through them, but I never completely felt like I "fit in". Then senior year came. My mother had always tried to get me to branch-out a bit and spread my wings, so when an opportunity arose for me to join a school play, she took advantage of it. I never thought twice about joining a play before, until she bet me 20 dollars that I was too afraid to give it a shot. I took her up on the bet and auditioned, and I landed the leading male role (much to my surprise). I then went on to have the most fun and fulfilling year of school of my life, meeting the best friends I've ever had (and still have, to this day) and discovering something in myself that I had never known before...I LOVE performing for an audience. I don't know why I'm able to open up so much on stage, but something about acting just makes me feel like I can do anything. I feel like I belong, for once. I then went on to act in my school's competing One-Act-Play, in which I received several medals for "best actor" and "all-star cast". It may have been merely high-school competition, but it's much more than I had ever expected to do with it. I very quickly fell in love with it. Then I graduated and went off to college, when I began immersing myself with film and stage (and my ex-girlfriend for two years). My parents never told me I couldn't, but they strongly discouraged me getting a degree in either of the aforementioned subjects (though I took a theater class with the department head who tried to get me to consider becoming a theater major). I saw their logic and agreed that neither degree has much stability, so I went on a different path...leading me to change my major five times from journalism to psychology, mathematics, mechanical engineering, and finally electrical engineering, where I am currently. I've always been exceptional in math (only missed one question on my math SAT's), so I decided to stick with electrical engineering because well, there is much money involved, and I'm decent at it. The problem is that I've grown to hate math over the years. I don't want to look back on my life with any regrets, but this may be one of them. When I look back on high school, my biggest regret by a mile is not doing theater sooner. And then I began to think... I'm 21 years old, and I have my whole life ahead of me. Changing my major five times has set me on a path to graduate when I'm 23, which is still young compared to the majority of college grads (I've read multiple stats that say average age is roughly 25). So I propose this question to you...should I take a break to pursue acting? I'm not saying at all that I KNOW I'm going to make it, or I KNOW what it takes, because I won't pretend to. I've done my research though, and I've concluded that if I decide to do this, I'll need to move to Los Angeles, where the cost of living is around $3000/month. I have a pretty decent savings already that would get me an apartment to start with, should I decide to follow through with it. And my plan is to get an agent and an acting coach from there, and then let the road take me wherever it will. Now, I'm not saying I'm "dropping out". If things go poorly for me, I have every intention of picking up where I left off in college. But I won't be young forever. I can always finish my degree. I had originally thought about doing this right out of high school, but I decided not to, because it might have been a phase I was going through. But it wasn't. Four years after my first play, I still do nothing but think about the possibilities and "what-if's". It doesn't leave me. And it's not that I want to be famous. I really, truthfully don't care about that. I just want to do something I enjoy, and I want to know if there's the possibility of success. The only way to know is to try. right? The first person I went to about this is a close friend of mine. His advice was "I wouldn't do it, but you've gotta be happy with what you do". That didn't really get me anywhere. I haven't gone to my parents with this yet, because I think I know what they'll say. My dad will say hell no, but my mom will probably tell me to go for it (though I know she wouldn

• Answer:

  I truly understand what you're feeling - sometimes you just have to go with your gut feeling, don't you? My daughter turned down her university place to go to drama school, and is now a professional actor. She works three other 'ordinary' jobs just to survive financially, but gets the occasional acting job, does some unpaid stage plays to add to her CV/resume, and is very happy. One thing I would recommend is that you get at least a year of good classes before you do anything else. School stuff is a great start, but there's a lot more to learn. You should also get as much experience as you can in community theatre or anything else you can get involved in. Agents are hard to find - good ones, anyway. Many are total scams, and all the good ones would expect you to have had some really good training and a lot of experience. They'll never take on beginners. And a coach is an expensive luxury which wouldn't help much anyway. Coaches are really just for established actors to work on one specific are, like an accent or a style. A class is by far the best, because acting is all about interacting and reacting with other performers, and you can't become skilled at that with just a coach to work with. Spend a year working on your resume - several stage plays, a few student films, that sort of thing would impress, and as I said, a year in a really good class. Then, if you head off to LA or NY or wherever, at least you'll stand a chance of competing with the thousands of drama school graduates also out there wanting exactly the same as you do! You have a great attitude and are obviously realistic and intelligent - essential attributes of an actor - and I really hope you make it. I've supported my daughter all the way, and although she's never going to be rich and famous (thank heavens!) she has no regrets, doesn't mind being broke all the time, and neither of us would change a thing. My dad always said that failure isn't when you don't succeed - it's when you don't even try. Good luck!