Meet Jon Snow | Actor

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jon Snow and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jon, how do you think about risk?
I don’t think risk taking ever gets any less scary. It hasn’t for me at least. But it’s a good fear. Maybe there’s a secret I’ll accidentally stumble upon one day when I’m 95 and gray – actually, I hope my hair all turns white like Gandalf, if I’m being honest. But that’s not really the question, is it? For me, it’s always been something that terrifies me no matter how many times I do it, and I think I’m fairly practiced at the art. I grew up in a cult. I was sexually abused around the age of 6 or 7. I was physically beaten and mentally abused by my mother until the age of 17 when I finally ran away from home after my junior year of high school because I was scared that one of us wouldn’t make it out of that relationship alive. I left behind my family, my church, and frankly, most of my entire life as I knew it up to that point. So, even though, earlier in life, I never recognized it as such, I’d say that I’ve been taking risks for most of my life. And I don’t want to give the impression that I’m some sort of cool James Dean-esque type rebel, flipping the cult and my parents the bird, and speeding off into the sunset to find my fortunes. Quite the opposite actually. After high school, I went to theatre school at SMU in Dallas, and promptly failed out. I wandered around for another 3 years before fighting to get back into SMU, which I eventually did, and I finally graduated at 28. So all those experiences made me something of a late bloomer. I was so lost back then. I didn’t know where I fit in, where I belonged, what I was supposed to do, and all of that was a direct result of growing up in a cult. We were told from a very a young age how to dress, what to think, who to believe and listen to, who not to believe or listen to. The tragedy in that, is that it led me down a road of feeling completely incapable of listening to my own inner wisdom. Those patterns are extremely difficult to break. Honestly, I’m still learning to trust myself. But I guess something happened over the years as I kept searching for answers. Little by little I would take risks, even if they were just tiny ones. And you know what? Sometimes it works out, and sometimes it doesn’t, but I’ve learned that the outcome isn’t really for me to worry about. Although I sometimes still do. But even things that took years for me to figure out, I can now look back on and see that all those risks, big and small, led me here, to this moment. And this moment is always something new, fresh, unexpected, and that’s pretty fucking exciting. I just have to do my best to be present as each moment presents itself. I think now, as I assess risk, I seek out that good fear and let it well up inside me, because I know if I’m feeling that good fear, it’s usually a sign that that’s where the good shit is. So, I do my best to face it head-on and see what kind of cool shit is waiting for me on the other side of that fear. I suppose that now I see risk taking as a practice, like most anything else in life. I don’t have the secret yet, but if I did, I might say that it’s the work of building up your tolerance to that good fear of risk taking. Don’t hide from it! Feel all the things and still move forward. I think that’s the work I find most rewarding.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
People always tell you to find your voice in your art. Which is cool and all, but it’s a lot easier fucking said than done, Mostly I think because no one ever tells you what that means. It’s not necessarily an empty platitude, but it can certainly feel like it. It’s taken me decades to discover that “finding my voice” – at least for me – really just means owning my own story. Which again, is one of those things people say and never really define. But there is literally no one who has had my exact experience in life. Sure, there are many stories similar to mine. There are cult survivors all over the place. Sexual abuse survivors are even more numerous, I’m sad to say. But while we might have similar stories, or walked familiar paths, no one else can see the world through my eyes, interpret it the way my mind interprets it. There is gold in that. It took me so long to figure that out. In fact, I’m still uncovering it today. There’s always more. There’s always something deeper if we have the will to look for it. So now I know I can bring all those experiences and interpretations to my work, and literally no one else can do it quite like me. I also felt voiceless growing up. As children, we were constantly told “to be seen and not heard.” But the truth was that we never felt seen either. Now, I get to pursue my dream of acting, and guess what? I have been seen AND heard on tv shows I’ve booked. The whole world got to see and hear me – and please don’t tell me the whole world wasn’t watching, it might shake my poor little inner child to the core. I’ve written two different iterations of a solo show about my life growing up in a cult and the sexual, physical, and mental abuse I endured. I’ve written a TV pilot with my sister that placed in the top 10 in our first screenplay competition. My sister and I are currently working on a podcast about that same subject material. All of this work, anything I get to lend my voice, my time, my talent to, I’m constantly thinking about that kid who is sitting at home, thinking that the whole world is crazy, who feels voiceless, who feels unseen, and I think about the sliver of hope that my work, my voice might reach their heart and help them to open it up in a way they didn’t know was possible. That kid is me. The first time I told my story publicly was a Whittier College. The school decided to mandate that the sports teams attend the show since we were discussing sexual assault and abuse. It was rough. I was nervous. Who am I to tell this story? What difference would it even make? Would these college kids even care or understand? Five minutes into my hour long show, I found myself saying a line that was five minutes from the end of my show. But I’m a trained actor, luckily I didn’t panic. I quickly got myself back on track. I’m sure I would have been insecure and immature – in fact, I’m sure I was during my late teens and early twenties. I could hear kids in the audience saying “gross,” “ew, he did what to him?” – things like that. It was a tough night with a somewhat hostile crowd. But I made it. The only two people in the room who even knew I had messed anything up in any way was me and my director. So I did what any creative does in that situation: I started beating myself up. I sat on stage after everyone had already left and ran through all the mistakes I had made. Really just flogging myself. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I see a young man stepping onto down stage right. He looks at me and stands there without moving. There was something about the way he was looking at me as if he were asking for permission to approach. I waved him over. We said hello, and then he changed my life. He said his name was Kofi, and that he was from Ghana. He told me that the things that I talked about in my show had happened to him too, in Ghana. He said that he didn’t know that we were allowed to talk about such things until he saw me talk about them on that stage. We hugged. And he left. That young man blew my mind. I didn’t know why I was doing what I was doing. I didn’t know if it even mattered. While I sat there, beating myself up, I didn’t know if I would ever tell that story again. I wish I could find Kofi. I wish I could tell him that I needed him that night – maybe just as much, if not more, than he needed to hear me tell my story. That’s what I mean when I say, that kid is me. Now, I move proudly into my work, knowing that if I can touch the heart of even one Kofi, then it’s worth everything it takes for me to continue on.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I love the ability to be hiking one day, snowboard the next, and then go to the beach the day after that. Southern California is pretty great. I’d probably take them hiking in Bailey Canyon over in Sierra Madre and visit Mary’s Market up there in the canyon afterwards. I love people watching on the boardwalk in Venice. Going for sushi at Izakaya on 3rd street is a must. Gracias Madre is another favorite. Lucky Baldwin’s for a good Belgian beer or two. La Escuela for some tacos. A night drive on a cool evening cruising Mulholland is always a welcome escape. A Clippers game – yes that’s right, the Clippers. If it’s good enough for Billy Crystal, it’s good enough for me! (I do revere the Lakers though – just don’t tell my Clippers.)

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Wow, there are so many people who have kept me going. Sam and Marilyn Hack who recognized something in me as an angry young teenager in St. Louis, Missouri – they helped keep me sane back then by allowing me to express myself fully as a young, naive actor. Fran Wolf, my high school art teacher who passed away many years ago, who let me paint F-U-C-K on the wall before we painted over it for a project. My high school basketball coach who cut me my senior year because he didn’t like me doing the acting thing. Thanks Coach Smith! I literally probably wouldn’t be an actor without you. Charley Helfert who denied my return to SMU because that only made me fight harder to get back in the theatre program. Maybe Charlie knew what he was doing, but I’m grateful to him for giving me reason to hold steadfast in what I wanted. Bill Lengfelder, my movement teacher at SMU who wrote in my yearly review that I should “seek what’s inside me that causes me to undercut my own prodigious talent.” I had to look up the word prodigious for that one. It hurt a little more when I realized what that meant, but it lit my fire. Michael Connolly – still one of the most amazing professors and mentors I have ever had. My manager and dear friend Kimleigh Smith, who got me to do my very first solo show and share the journey of my cult upbringing, my sexual, mental, and physical abuse. Telling those stories has opened my heart and my art in the most profound ways. My friend Ken Best who helped me discover and connect to a deep spiritual side of me that I wasn’t even aware existed. Alessandro, who took that spiritual side and cranked it up to the nth degree. Risa Bramon Garcia who opened up a confidence in my acting I didn’t know was possible for me. And Josh Pais, who showed me a whole new approach to acting that lined up my creativity and my spirituality in ways I was searching for and didn’t even realize it.

Website: thejonsnow.com

Instagram: the_jon_snow

Twitter: the_jon_snow

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMNEa2Zs8KB6FlospUbOzXw

Image Credits
Michael Roud Chris Hall Rayana Rasamee