Meet Matt Christian | Actor, Writer, Improviser

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

Hi Matt, what role has risk played in your life or career?
An artist’s life hinges on risk. If you’re following your calling and engaging with the magic that is the creative process, every step you take is going to involve some element of stepping out into the unknown. There’s an adage in the improv community that goes “jump off the cliff and figure it out on the way down”, which really sums up both the improviser’s experience on stage and also the mindset you have to adopt when pursuing a creative career. You go out there, completely open and vulnerable with a seed of an idea and that’s it – nothing else. You flesh out the thing from there. And the way you do that is by following these little instincts – these little impulses – that you feel tugging your soul in a particular direction. Oftentimes you don’t even know why they’re showing up or why you’re feeling led in a particular direction, but the “why” doesn’t matter. What’s important is that you follow. Those impulses might lead you to a dead end or they may lead to some of the finest work of your career, but you won’t know until you see the thing through to its completion. And I can tell you from personal experience that the vast majority of the time, following those risky impulses has led to the work I’m most proud of. It may not always look the same as it did when you first started, but it always turns out exactly as it was supposed to. Taking those risks doesn’t necessarily get easier, but you do become more accustomed to the uncomfortably.

Another big part of becoming comfortable with risk is becoming comfortable with the idea of failing on a public stage and learning not to care how your artistic choices are received by an audience. When you’re connected to yourself and the inner life from which the essence of your creative choices flow, you become much more at ease with turning down the volume of everyone else’s opinions – which in turn allows you to channel your focus into into the project itself and remain open to collaborate with whatever energy initially inspired you in the first place.

Dancing with creativity is inherently risky. But at the end of the day, it’s not about your audience’s perception of you, the rewards that may come your way or even the final product itself. What matters is that you trust the creative invitation to step out and express something within yourself that is yearning to be witnessed.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
It wasn’t easy at all. And still isn’t in a lot of ways. Things that seemed difficult back then are much easier now, but as you level up there are always new and difficult challenges to be faced. I’m proud of how I make things happen today. There’s an unspoken feeling when you first try to forge a path for yourself in this industry that you must wait to be chosen. I followed that path for a long time. There was an energy of seeking out what everyone else in Hollywood wanted me to be rather than a presenting of who I knew I was. I didn’t know how to allow myself to be seen.

During the pandemic I felt a shift in myself. Up until that time I had been a good acting student, listened to what I was told and waited patiently for my turn in the entertainment industry, but by 2022, I was simply fed up. Fed up with waiting for my hard work to be recognized and fed up that I had this calling in my soul that was not being fulfilled. So I decided to take matters into my own hands and just start doing the work to get myself to where I wanted to go. I ended up writing a book (Dear Artist: 75 Letters from One Struggling Artist to Another), writing, staring and producing my way into SAG-AFTRA, and working for an entire year on my dream role of playing Jimmy Stewart in a biopic telling the story of his incredible life. The process of all of that was not only a creative crucible that forged me into the artist that I am today, but also a life crucible that forged me into the person I am today. If you’re doing it right, your art and your life are intertwined. Every bit of growth that happens in one informs the other. And when you are growing in both simultaneously, they feed into each other and make your work, art and life as a whole infinitely richer.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I’m a lover of old Hollywood, so hitting up classic spots around town like Musso & Frank’s and the studio backlot tours are must-see’s for me. There’s something so charming about walking, sitting or eating in the same places that legends like Fred Astaire, Marilyn Monroe and Frank Sinatra did. The history is so fascinating. I love the story about the owner of Musso’s being asked why he has never replaced the wallpaper in the dining room after all these years and his response being, “Humphrey Bogart’s cigar smoke is up there. How could I possibly take down that paper?”

Another interesting spot I’ve discovered recently is the NoHo Diner over on Magnolia. The food is great, the people are lovely, but I swear this place is haunted. The antique decor, sun-faded portraits and slightly off decorations give it such an eerie, fun atmosphere. One look at the black and white group photo in the side dining area will have you thinking you stepped into The Overlook Hotel.

One of my favorite plot twists in the last year and a half of my life has been becoming involved in the LA comedy community. I graduated from the Upright Citizen’s Brigade last year and am constantly performing in comedy shows myself or going to friend’s shows around the city, so I would definitely show off the incredible talent of the indie comedy community by recommending shows! There’s hilarious entertainment going on every night at venues like UCB, The Clubhouse, Lyric Hyperion and Dynasty Typewriter.

And last but definitely not least – The Griffith Observatory/Hollywood Sign. It simply can’t be beat. The Observatory has to be my favorite spot in LA. With gorgeous views, a peaceful atmosphere and all the incredible things you can see and learn about inside? Absolutely priceless. And the Hollywood Sign is a view I never get tired of, no matter how long I live here.

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?
I would not be who I am today without the mentorship and collaboration of several people that have walked alongside me on this journey. The first would be an actor by the name of James Madio (Band of Brothers, Hook, The Basketball Diaries) who took me under his wing when I first began acting professionally back in 2016. For two years I had the massive privilege of learning from Jimmy one on one as he taught me the foundations of acting technique and really showed me what it means to be an actor. He later also founded an acting studio that I was a part of. One night after I had given a particularly resonant performance, I remember him pulling me aside and saying (paraphrasing) “You’re ready. I’ve worked with big names – Hanks, Spielberg, DiCaprio – and you’re ready to make the leap. Get out of here and go to LA.” Jimmy was my Gandalf through the first part of my creative journey and I’ll always be grateful to him for that. By the way, his new movie The Featherweight has been making waves running the film festival circuit and is fantastic! Go check it out!

The second group of people that have had the most significant impact on my creative life are the members of my production company The Paper Cones Group. This group of people means so much to me because it’s filled with the kind of artists who refuse to sit back and wait for someone else to give them permission creatively. The Hollywood machine can be such a slog for those who are trying to build careers, and is often antithetical to the reasons we wanted to perform in the first place. Actors can spend so much energy trying to keep up with all the necessary things orbiting acting itself – such as taking classes, seeking representation, finding that perfect headshot, building a resume, etc. – that the actual creative expression that is the heartbeat of our craft and why we do it all in the first place can often fall to the wayside. After taking all the right steps and following down the “safe” road for some time, we became very frustrated waiting to be chosen by the powers that be and decided it was time to choose ourselves. After one experimental production, we realized how well we worked together and began toying with the idea of functioning as an actual company rather than just friends getting together to film stuff with an iPhone. Cut to over a year later and we’ve garnered 24 awards for our first official short film (Getting Hit On) and are knee deep in pre-production for our third project – a sci-fi/horror short titled Joshua Tree – as we speak.

Website: https://www.officialmattchristian.com/

Instagram: @realmattchristian

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBhFWNrk7QA&t=8s

Other: Link where you can order Matt’s book “Dear Artist: 75 Letters from One Struggling Artist to Another”

https://www.amazon.com/Dear-Artist-Letters-Struggling-Another/dp/1736075500