When I was at U.C.L.A., I worked my way through school as a tour guide at Universal Studios, and I came in contact with a lot of people in the agency business.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I went there and helped him shuffle pictures of people, and one of the agents asked me if I was interested in acting. Of course, I was a little bit interested in it; I'm sure that's part of the reason I moved to L.A. even though I never admitted it to myself.
In L.A., I live right across from Universal Studios.
I was actually discovered while at a showroom appointment and was immediately sent over to an agency in L.A. I was about 15 years old at that time.
I worked for a lot of directors.
My father is an actor, so he brought me into his agency when I was young. It wasn't something I wanted to do until high school, when I started taking theater and really liked it. Then an agent found me and wanted me to come out to Los Angeles and give it a shot. I gave myself six months, but it only took me like a week to get a job.
The thing that helped me get into the film business was that I went to school in Athens, Georgia and managed to get on, um, working on music videos for a band called R.E.M. and that kind of opened up a lot of doors for me.
I graduated from the University of Oklahoma, and I got the opportunity to take some on-camera classes while I was in school and met a casting director who informed me quite a bit before my move out to L.A.; it made L.A. feel possible, coming from Oklahoma and not having a family that was in the industry.
My dad was a theater actor, so he had an agent, and he brought me into his agency when I was maybe four years old. That was how I started. I started modeling, and it progressed from there.
I met my agent through a casting director here in Wilmington after I auditioned for a Disney movie.
When I went to L.A., I started modeling, hoping to travel and learn from photographers. It led to auditions to do commercials.