Jake Hart
Actor, Director, Educator
http://www.jakehart.org/
Marvels Podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/show/3FHDexESyV0wMrJYpZ3Dhe?si=46QnvfRjRQ-Docm1q1IgYw
Cordillera International Film Festival:
www.ciffnv.org
Let’s start off with the obvious place to start, please tell us a little about yourself:
Well my name is Jake hart and I’m an actor living outside New York. I started off in the Bay Area in California, and then to Seattle for High school and college. I traveled the country doing theater for a few years, finally coming to rest in NYC over 12 years ago. Since then I’ve built a career of steady work and even managed to start a family. Currently, I’m a professional actor, voice actor, a SAGAFTRA committee member, and parent/slave to my 6 year old overlord. More recently, I’ve taken on the role as Development Coordinator for the Cordillera Film Festival.
You completed your BFA at the Cornish College of the Arts, a theater program that focuses on nurturing students as well-rounded artists and subscribes to the idea that theater and storytelling can serve as a force for positive change in the world. What was that experience like and what influence did it have in shaping the artist/person you wanted to become?
I would be lying if I didn’t admit that the time I spent at Cornish absolutely made me what I am today. I suppose the same could be said of anyone’s collegiate years, just going from 18 to 22 (in my case 19 to 23) somewhere different than you’re used to will have that effect. But the life experiences have as much of a hold as the training. I’m a strong advocate for the conservatory system. Keep a small group, work hard all day every day, and you’ll go further. A system that forces you to keep your foot on the gas, and in many of our cases, work multiple jobs outside at the same time, is one that will likely prepare you for anything. After 4 years of that, the requirements of this lifestyle weren’t so daunting. As for shaping me into the artist I wanted to become, I would have to say that is still shifting. I was introduced to voiceover there, which is now the bedrock of my career, though I never would’ve guessed that before. I honed my Shakespeare there, which is still my great love. But what I want to do with this life, what I have to say, is ever changing, and the tools I use are ever evolving. I think the messages I want to be a part of, and the stories I have to tell, flow freely from one medium to another. For me that sometimes means going outside the realm of acting. I use the tools of my conservatory training for acting, but I use the life experiences I gained there to shape my artistic world view.
If you haven’t answered this already, what made you decide to (or feel prepared to) take the leap to pursue acting full-time professionally? And what made you choose to settle in the NYC area as opposed to a different actor hub?
I’ve known I wanted to be an actor since I was 11. I wasn’t sure how or what that truly meant, but I knew I wanted it. For one second I thought maybe I would be a rock star instead, but that wasn’t really ever in the cards for me. Playing a myriad of characters and telling a story. That was my addiction. I never felt prepared exactly, I just kept telling myself it had to work and there was no other option. I think I started like most people who want to act, with TV and films. Living in those fantasy worlds seemed like a dream. Of course once you start doing it, the stage becomes the training ground, and after a few years I stopped thinking about anything but that. Film and television seemed further and further away. I first passed through NYC when I was 20. I was on a layover with my girlfriend on our way to Italy. The second I saw it from the air, I knew it was home. I came in on the path train to the towers and from the second I exited Tower One I knew I loved every filthy inch. After school when I came through on a tour or whenever I had a week or 2 off, I would spend it there. I even did all my auditioning at the equity building and that was how I would book the next and then the next gig. Ironically it was only when I decided to stay that I saw less and less of that place.
Over the years, you’ve done an impressive job working consistently as an actor. The breadth of your work spans a wide variety of art types, from Shakespeare to television to video games to voice over to satirical videos to educational work and beyond. Is there one method or medium that you prefer over the others or that you consider the most powerful/effective in sharing a story?
I no longer prefer one medium above another. It took me all the way up to the age of 40 to think that. I recognize now that the mediums are themselves just tools. Each is beautiful and magical in it’s own right, and serves some stories better than others. As for preferences, when it comes to sharing a story nothing will ever give an actor as much instant gratification as live performance. Whether it is classical, contemporary, musical or live band, improv or stand-up. That work will always fill me in a way nothing else can in the moment. Not only the live interaction but the day-to-day work it takes. The the filling out of a piece moment to moment in its entirety, then doing it again, and again. When I work on camera there is now a deep satisfaction in locking a perfect shot. As an actor I have little to do with it unless I’m working very closely with the entire crew. Truthfully that has only occurred for me when I’m co-producing, or if it’s a small personal crew working on a passion project. But when we get the right take, light, sound, camera everything clicking together at the exact right moment with the actors…it feels timeless and perfect. Privately I’ve found myself so used to being in a voice-recording booth, I wouldn’t know how to spend my life without voice work and animation. I love it dearly. The detail of that craft has bled into my bones. Just the other day I needed to get some copy into 50 seconds and without paying attention I could sense when I hit it at 47.5, and had a feel for the copy’s perfection at 48.5. That’s the sort of work that comes with time, the sort of work that makes me focus. Aaaagghhh the question was which is most effective. Well that’s gotta be the small screen. It may be turning into a galaxy of content so large we can all be lost, but it will also continue to reach the largest audiences. At the end of the day, the stories that reach the most people will live the longest.
In addition to acting professionally, you also pay it forward through your work as an educator and advisor with many impressive organizations (NYU’s Tisch School, The Public Theater Emerging Writers, The LARK, to name a few). Can you talk about what those experiences entail, how you got involved, and why this work is important to you?
The first time I taught was for the Red Eagle Soaring Native Youth Theater in Seattle. It was so hard I told myself I would never do it again. But over the years, I realized that every time I went back, or had a residency at a College or University, it was filling me. It was a chance to share what I loved in a way that helped me remember why I loved it. It was a chance to share something I thought I knew and in seeing it reflected back at me, learned it all over again from entirely new dimensions. Found new depths within the work. When you teach acting or direct something, it mirrors all those things back to you. Also, if I find myself teaching a practical application course like fight choreo or voice over, I relish the chance to tell people practical tips and tricks I wish I had learned in school. No one ever tells you what mic to buy, who to go to for reels, whether tumbling wil be 100 million times more important than bo staff. One big one that my own senior acting teacher mentioned to us, how to do your taxes and file for unemployment! My dean at Cornish, who I will admit never thought I was the sort of student who should go to grad school, did give me one sentiment that makes sense to this day. He told me he wasn’t worried about my future because I was good at figuring out how to be where I was needed. I think it was like that for teaching. I started off an inner city Native who couldn’t imagine how I could be an actor. I got out of school and wanted to find those kids and let them see how. Later it changed, I simply wanted to help them to see that their artistic tendencies mattered, and that their artistic lives were valid. I some ways it’s more important to me than any personal achievement as an actor.
You also do a lot of work partnering with Native/Indigenous arts organizations and performing in their productions, (Amerinda, Red Eagle Soaring Native Youth, Sovereignty, the Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program, and most recently Ajijaak on Turtle Island). Can you talk about what they do and how/why you got involved?
For the first time in this nation’s history Natives are being heard in the public square, our peoples are being elected to public office, our claims of tribal sovereignty are gaining a foothold in U.S. courts. In addition to that, Native cultural arts have started flourishing in every major city. Whenever I can be a part of that explosion- the freedom of art, of justice in the form of our many cultures’ right to exist, I will be. I’m part white, but I’m also of Mexican and Cherokee heritage. Most of the heritage of my family lines has been swallowed by the culture of America. The different forms of hiding and assimilation my families had to endure, the erasure they were subjected to is finally being decolonized. Whatever small part I play in that process, I am here for it.
Given your track record to finding collaborators that match your personal and artistic mission, what advice would you give to someone who is looking to connect with these same types of people and/or organizations in their own areas, but either don’t know where to look, aren’t sure how to get involved, or where they fit?
Oof, this is a deeply personal question. One I’m not sure I can answer for everyone. It also happens to be a question I don’t think I can always answer for myself. There are a million ways to go about finding collaborators. Sometimes those collaborations are fulfilling and fun and come to nothing. Sometimes they’re difficult and limited, but spawn wonderful things. I know for certain I’ve met folks I want desperately to work with who don’t think I’m a good fit for them. I also know some people will be important to me forever, and sometimes the ways we can actually work together will come and go. Part of me wants to be super positive and Instagram-level optimistic, and just say the right collaborators will come to you when you participate in readings and workshops and meet with people who inspire you. Just reach out to those you can learn from. But that feels sort of impossibly murky even as I see it on the page. In some instances that has worked. I met Mary Kathryn Nagle through the Emerging Writer’s Group at the Public, and it has created one of the most important artistic friendships I’ll ever have. I met Gina Rodriguez at a School of Visual Arts senior reading I auditioned for, she brought me to her legit agency and spent a year sending me on auditions from her desk(where she was an assistant, learning how to succeed). On the other hand, I met my Cult Comedy Pictures partner George Gaffney when we were both working at a hotel downtown, and that work exploded my life forever, changing everything I wanted to do and realized I could do. My point is, if you want to make God laugh, tell her your plans. It is absolutely possible that the multi-media ensemble opera you want to make, is also in the hearts of another group of people you will meet at an acting class, or an SVA reading workshop. It is also possible you will meet someone at the restaurant you work at, they will want you to play bass in a band they are forming, you will learn the chords in 3 months and your band will be featured in the background of a television show the following year. Your life can change forever with art, where you start is rarely where you end up. Be open to those changes and you continue on, grow as an artist, and find artistic rivers you never imagined. Get tunnel vision about a project or an idea of what you want to accomplish, say no to everything else, you will likely stay at your day job, and your web series pilot will spend 3 years in post.
Stories are important, now more than ever, especially those that amplify all voices and embrace the full diversity of our world, both past and present. Who are some of your favorite storytellers or artists?
Mary Kathryn Nagle, Delanna Studi, Larissa Fasthorse, Susan SoonHe Stanton, Dominique Morriseau, J. Julian Christopher, Vickie Ramirez, Jocelyn Bioh, Diana Oh, Laurie Woolery, Martina Majok, Maria Goyanes, May Adrales, Kip Fagan, Heidi Shrek, Patricia McGregor, Ty Defoe, Madeline Sayet, Vera Starbard, Molly Smith, Jason Grasl, Carolyn Dunn, Darrell Dennis, Tanis Parenteau. This is just the tiniest tip of a very large iceberg. A mixture of writers and directors. There are more, so many more.
How has becoming a father influenced you?
HAHAHAHA. I mean, every fiber of my being has changed, I’m fairly certain I’m genetically different. I’m fundamentally and philosophically different. She is a part of my waking life forever. She’s literally jumping off my legs and watching Big Hero 6 while I type this. No part of me will now exist without taking her into consideration on some level. Also, I do waaaaay less theater and way fewer private projects because I don’t want to be away from her too much. It is absolutely a sacrifice, and I will make a million more if needs be. While I know she will never care about or be into every single artistic decision I ever have made or will make, but I want now more than ever to leave the world better than I found it, and that includes not littering the floor of theaters with garbage candy when I could be putting something of use on the stage or screen.
Given all that you have going on at any given moment, how do you find or strive for balance?
I don’t is the short answer. If anyone ever gets the chance to read this, I can tell you it took me months to send in. Raising a child has changed everything in this way as well. I simply keep going. I don’t work out enough and hope to change that, but I prioritize family, then work, then enough bills to keep the lights on, then everything else ends up on a series of lists that will never be empty. There are probably 7 spiritual laws of things that spark joy I’m forgetting to do, but at the end of the day. I just want to work, to keep working. To be of use. When I get a moment above water to breathe I try to focus on artistic projects I’ve wanted to focus on, and usually the simple pursuit of that leads back into the work rabbit hole. It is stressful and tense, and every second is better than waiting tables, or bouncing, working in a hotel. I will do just about anything I have to do to stay working in the arts. I sleep 5 or so hours a day, I make my daughter breakfast, I look for or make work, sometimes like today I take her to a job, rinse and repeat. At this point, when I take a vacation I lose my mind 3 days in and need to go back to work.
What do you do when you feel stuck creatively or stuck in general?
No time for that. I have always found something to do, even if it pales in comparison to thing I imagined. Much like my work life, my practice is to keep on. Before I had my daughter, I would sneak out and do a reading or audition for random shows, start contacting every artist I knew was working to see if there was something I could do. I once light designed a show because someone near me said they knew someone who needed that. I try to remind myself the pros get stuck like everyone else. Just keep writing, keep shooting, practice a new song for an audition book, or fix some work that’s never been right. Go to Karaoke and challenge everyone in your mind, then make up back stories about each of them. Go to a performance of some kind and be inspired, disappointed, or jealous. Be all 3! Go down a google rabbit hole of an artist you think you’re similar to, at 1 in the morning you’ll find some part of their history that you want recreate in your own life. These are all tricks. None of them will work every time, but something always comes if you never stop trying.
Do you ever experience fear, doubt, and/or loneliness? How do you manage those feelings?
I question myself almost every day. What I feel isn’t fear exactly, it’s more like swimming into an ocean without knowing where you’re going. Some days you stop to tread water for a minute and you can no longer tell where you’ve been, where you are, or what will be ahead. Doubt for sure. I doubt every now and again, implode a lil’ bit, and fall to the floor. Wondering if where I am is as far as I’ll go and if I should stop now and do something else. Or on a more macro level I wonder if the entire existence of myself as a performer more than a creator has been short shrift, and I should’ve done something entirely different for the world. No genuine answer, that still happens. The loneliness is different. As someone who spent a great deal of their life with both fomo and an immense need to please others, it took and takes everything inside myself to find solace and necessity. When I was a professional theater actor and did nothing else, I was almost never alone, and the intensity of what Joe Calarco coined the insta-family gave me such fulfillment that I never stopped long enough to worry about what I would do next. When I committed to New York and a different form of career, things started to change. When I committed to stay here it forced me to live by the axiom I have preached to college students, “Acting is what you love, but auditioning is your job.” Then you have to slowly foment your alone time into a creative source, and relish what it offers that creativity. Over the years it has helped me in the audition process that I look forward to my audition times. Not just as a moment to shine or perform, but also as a chance to meet, catch up with, and truly appreciate my fellow actors. These are my colleagues, the people who will most understand me, the insta-family on a level I never knew I would come have. Now I crave my alone time between those moments and home.
Have you ever straight up failed? What did you learn and how did you come back from it?
I have and do fail on the regular. I’m 41 and not famous. I have had shots and missed, I have shots disappear in front of me. I have had moments of those amazing creative collaborations you spoke of and fallen short, both for myself and others. I have been ill prepared, mis-cast, in situations where I didn’t agree, and in situations where I just didn’t understand, only to get it five years later looking at a photograph in a magazine while at a bus stop. I once had a callback turn into a 45 minute meeting with a famous film director thinking, “This is it. This is the turning point.” only to never hear from him again. Just do better next time. Nothing is the end of anything, not until you die. Know that it may have had nothing to do with you personally. Most of the time it doesn’t. Know that your failure in one moment is like breaking down muscle during a workout that will only build up stronger, and you can work to fail differently next time. If everything happens without error in your life, nothing will mean anything.
What is the best advice you've been given (career or otherwise)? Or, what advice would you give to your teenage or younger self?
I’ve been given tons of great advice over the years and probably followed less than half of what I should have. The best? I can’t be sure, but there are a couple of big ones that float to the surface. Early on, about a year after college, a wonderful man named Jerry Manning invited me for coffee after I didn’t book a callback. That has never happened (before or since) to me. He told me the director loved my work and enjoyed everything I did. After I left the room she told him so, and then said, “It’s too bad we won’t be able to use him.” As he told me, he was startled by her response and when he asked her why, she responded, “The role spends most of the time in the background on the stage. The way he looks, and his particular qualities, it’ll pull way too much focus.” Discussing further he told me he had learned a lot that day about the nuance of the needs of that show, but also gained insight into something he thought I might want to know about myself. It was one of the greatest gifts I’ll ever receive as an actor. Knowing who you are, what you truly look like, sound like, the effect you as a being have on the audience. It means everything. Truthfully it can take years of performance of every kind to truly understand what that is, but it must be done. I’ve gone on to see colleagues and performers of every type spend years-YEARS trying to force themselves into being the type they want to be, not the type they are, myself included, and it almost never works. When it does work, it only does so through radical physical transformation. Meanwhile, so many of us miss out on a thousand characters, roles, and opportunities we would’ve been perfect for if we had embraced them. What can we do practically? The thing most of us fear the most. Put yourself on camera, put yourself on audio recordings, and take photos of yourself. Do it a lot, more than you think is necessary. Camera-test not just your auditions, but your scene work. You’ll have to do it to the point you no longer self conscious of it. You may hate what you see and hear at first, but that’s only self doubt, it’s only hesitance to see what’s truly there. Once you embrace you see, you’ll see yourself for the type you truly are. Then you can begin to see the world that your characters can climb into with ease. That is the world in which you’ll have the most opportunity to grow.
Of what you’ve accomplished or experienced thus far, what are you most proud of so far or found most rewarding? (either professionally or personally)
So my child is first. She’s first forever, she knows it, and everything I do forever will be with her in mind, and any other children I’m allowed to make. Teaching at Red Eagle Soaring is one of the most important things I’ve ever been a part of. So many of the wonderful students, now adults, who came from that program are shining examples of the humans I hope can save the world. And working with Mary Kathryn Nagle and the Strong Hearts who created Sliver of A Full Moon. That play, which is never entirely performed as a fictionally narrative piece, is a dramatized story of the passage of the Violence Against Women Act, and many of the powerful survivors and allies who helped it come about. The piece is often performed with some of the survivors sharing their stories, and it’s an ever-evolving piece because it’s an ever-evolving issue. Every time it reaches an audience it helps spread the message, and serves as a call to action for change. It is more than theater, and I am humbled and grateful every time I’m able to be a part of it.
What’s something you would love to do but haven’t gotten the chance to yet? (either professionally or personally)
Big movies. I want to be in big movies, and do big movie shoots in places near and far. I love it and want more of it. If I could shoot half of every year for the rest of my life, I would.
What’s next?!
These last few months, I’ve mostly made commercial and podcast voice work. It’s been fun and enriching, it also gives me more family time. Over the summer I was thrilled to take part in a festival of the complete works at Classic Stage Company, put on by Play On Shakespeare. I was also recently part of a video piece constructed around the works of Mac Wellman here in NYC. As I branch out into this new midlife phase of character work I’m starting to book, I will have to see what parts come. So far, it’s been exciting and, as I mentioned before, a little scary. But I’m doing my best to embrace what I am becoming, and I’m excited to see how that changes the work I’ll be able to make.
In times of stress, how do you relax, take care of yourself, or indulge yourself?
Currently I eat and drink my feelings, it used to be running and exercise. I’m trying to get back to that.
What motivates you?
Mostly a desire to work. I love the work and the process of the work. When that well runs dry, fear and economic insecurity usually sustain me until the desire returns.
What scares you?
Self doubt, and the idea of being disliked, or unwanted. Also, giving in to failure. Not spiders, it’s more that I get frustrated at them for being like us.
What brings you the greatest joy or satisfaction?
Yesterday, in the middle of a recording session I just took a minute to love being in the booth, love talking with the engineer and creative director while they cut a take down. Those moments in the middle when something is being made, and I get to be a part of it, and realizing this is what I do. It’s the best.
What should everyone do at least once in their life?
I want to say something better…but probably mushrooms.
Beyond what we’ve covered here, what is something you really want people to know about you?
I don’t mean to talk as much I do, I apologize (in advance) please know I’m always working on it.
What is a favorite memory?
Mostly stuff about my daughter being awesome.
Who’s your idol?
Possibly Bill Murray, Meryl Streep, or maybe like Oprah. Though I once saw J.K. Simmons typing on a laptop in an airport, he looked so happy and at peace I thought, “Jesus! I have to figure out what makes that mindset happen. I wanna be so happy that I make that face on the regular.”
What is your favorite restaurant or meal?
No favorite restaurant, many are good for different things, but Chongqing Chicken is probably my favorite thing to eat.
Who is on your guest list (alive or dead) for your perfect dinner party and what would you eat?
I feel the same way about people as I do about restaurants.
Where is your favorite place on earth?
Probably the woods of the NW, also lower Manhattan at sunrise.
What’s one thing you can’t live without?
I’ll never reveal that weakness to my enemies.
