Q: Please introduce yourself and your acting experience.
A: My name is Jesse Summers. I have been acting since I was in middle school. I used to hate being on stage. It would literally reduce me to tears and I would often have to be taken off the stage because I was so distressed. But one day my thinking kind of shifted and I loved it. Since then I have been acting off and on. I did a lot in high school. I have also worked with several talent agencies in hopes of working with an agent and a large talent firm.
Q: How long have you been interested or involved with acting?
A: I think it has probably been about 12 years, off and on. It isn’t a consistent passion for me, I suppose. It fluctuates. One day it looks like me acting on a stage, but on another day it’s me reading a book or talking to someone. So, I think it changes from day to day, but I have been interested in it since I was about 8 years old.
Q: What does expert acting look like? ie, what do you do to be a responsible, successful actor?
A: This is a hard question because I think it being successful in acting is very subjective, to an extent. A lot of it has to do with audience preference. You could be a great actor, but if nobody wants to watch you, then I don’t think you would really call yourself successful. So, part of that success has to be knowing your audience and what kind of a message you are telling. Another one of the responsibilities is being true to the work. I think in order to be successful you need to recognize where the truth is in your work and make sure to do it justice. That has a lot to do with how you are portraying a character and how you reflect their emotions. On top of that, you need to take care of yourself. Your body is the ultimate tool in this industry so you need to make sure you are taking care of your emotional and physical health. In a lot of ways it’s being true to yourself. So, I think in order to be successful you need to be true to yourself and true to your work.
Q: Describe your experience (if any) with medieval or “period” costume. What was your favorite costume that was representative of a different age?
A: I really haven’t worked on any productions that had this sort of costume.
Q: What makes you passionate about acting? What makes you passionate about acting in costume?
A: What makes me passionate about acting is the emotion. To me theater is about empathy. It’s about being able to understand another person inside and out so that you can show your audience that person. You have to know and feel everything about them. You have to feel what they feel and know why they feel that way. I think it is one of the greatest experiences that you can have and I think it has a lot to do with why acting is so popular. It speaks to everyone because everyone has emotions in some form and can identify with the struggles of being a human being. I just love that. It energizes me and gives me the greatest feeling of fulfillment that I have ever felt. Being able to connect with a character is awesome. It is so interesting to learn everything about them and what they have been through. And then sharing that connection with an audience and developing another sort of connection is amazing. I can’t justly describe it. I think it’s the greatest thing we can do as people; make a connection with someone else. So, my passion comes from wanting to understand other people and connect with people. I love exploring how emotions are felt and what that looks like in life.
I’m really not that into costuming. I prefer to look at emotion and movement on stage.