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[0:00] Leah Walsh: Hi, and welcome to The Compass, the podcast documenting the struggles of life as an artist.

[0:05] Leah Walsh: I'm Leah Walsh.

[0:07] Leah Walsh: Hi, so before we get started with the episode, one last shout out for the live event for the hundredth episode of The Compass this Sunday.

[0:15] Leah Walsh: It's gonna be November 19th at 7 p.m. at Arts on Site down on St. Mark's Place. It's a $15 suggested donation at the door.

[0:23] Leah Walsh: My guest is actor choreographer Jesse J. Perez, who I'm so excited about. Samora Pinderhughes, who has been on the podcast before, will be performing a few songs, and Brendan Spieth will be there as well doing the theme music live and another song as well.

[0:38] Leah Walsh: Please come join us. I would love to be in the same room with as many creative, loving folks as possible. Send me an RSVP by email so I can save you a spot. It's theCompassVive at gmail.com.

[0:50] Leah Walsh: My guest today is Chalia La Tour.

[0:52] Leah Walsh: Chalia is an actor who I was introduced to through Ceci Fernandez when I began looking for actors who were also activists.

[1:08] Leah Walsh: She was also in the apprentice program at Actors Theater of Louisville years ago when Frankie was doing a show there. So lots of intersections with people I love.

[1:17] Leah Walsh: She did a lot of activism while she was at the Yale School of Drama in graduate school and really helped to expand the conversation there on diversity inclusion, not only in the students that they accept, but as well as the type of curriculum that they're teaching.

[1:32] Leah Walsh: So I'm excited for you to hear about that. So there are a few sound issues during this episode.

[1:37] Leah Walsh: Right towards the end, um, my batteries died for the first time ever in 99 episodes.

[1:44] Leah Walsh: And I had started recording with my phone shortly thereafter, so we just miss a short chunk. So I will record a little bridge and let you know what you missed there.

[1:54] Leah Walsh: Um and then towards the beginning, there's also a mechanical kind of pulsing sound in the background, which sounds almost like a comforting sci-fi creature is in the room with us, but that only lasts for the first 20 minutes.

[2:07] Leah Walsh: So it's a little bit of a sound adventure. I'm sorry, Chalia, but uh you still get the meat of the conversation.

[2:14] Leah Walsh: So thanks for sticking with me. Things happen even now, episode 99.

[2:19] Leah Walsh: I hope to see some of you on Sunday at the live episode. Happy Thanksgiving, and thank you for listening.

[2:26] Leah Walsh: And I hope you enjoy the 99th episode of The Compass.

[2:47] Chalia La Tour: Oh. Um, what I do to not go to the dark side, and what is the dark side most often for you as well?

[2:56] Chalia La Tour: Oh, I think the dark side for me is usually just feelings of self-doubt. Usually if I have enough grounding in myself, and just yeah, if I feel like I'm connected to myself, whether I'm in a good mood or a bad mood or whatever, and I just feel like I know who I am, what I woke up today to do, or am interested in, the highs and lows don't feel like it doesn't feel dark necessarily, just feels like life, and that's okay.

[3:32] Chalia La Tour: Um the days where there's like just this overwhelming amount of doubt, and like I don't know yeah what it is that I'm looking for or what it is I really want. Like that's that's when things can yeah get just icky and fuzzy and really hard to navigate.

[3:54] Chalia La Tour: Um for what I do to either not go there or find a way around it or inside of it. I think I'm just really lucky to have one a really beautiful group of people in my community.

[4:11] Chalia La Tour: I have it you know folks that I like to call like my tribe here that are just uh since I'm so I'm from California originally so I don't have like family or necessarily even um friends who've known me over the past you know four or five years but luckily like through that I found people who do feel like family now and take enough time to you know give me some tough love if I need it but also yeah I don't I don't know how I got so lucky to get people who have just such beautiful outlooks on life who really like their work is centered around caring about people and opening their hearts very genuinely to other people.

[4:59] Chalia La Tour: So I'm lucky I'm yeah I'm very lucky that I have folks here who are just a phone call away or you know a train stop away for me to go just shake things up a bit.

[5:11] Chalia La Tour: Um I also I have a background in um visual arts also besides being an actor.

[5:17] Chalia La Tour: So like I used to design mostly. Um which was like a thing for for like a good six years or five years still a lot of time just painting for myself and you know, painting and making some sort of visual art yes it's like a physical meditative thing that makes me slow down.

[5:36] Chalia La Tour: But it I think what I usually get out of it more so is it it's a practice I have to like rem how do I put it like um reminds me to be appreciate what I see as beauty or interesting and sometimes um or maybe it's not that maybe it's you know me painting or drawing or creating something that's a representation of whatever negative place I've gone into.

[6:02] Chalia La Tour: Right. But usually it'll start that and I'll usually end up drawn so that I just find really like whimsical and fantastic and like or I just think it's pretty and silly and it yeah it's just a practice I have I think like uh maybe like some people view playing music or dancing or or something like that that just gets me a little uh in a little childlike wonder place and get lost in it for a bit and stop taking myself so seriously usually but oh that's awesome.

[6:37] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[6:37] Leah Walsh: Yeah and that is something that you can do by yourself when you aren't able to reach out to community or whatever.

[6:43] Chalia La Tour: Yeah.

[6:43] Chalia La Tour: That's wonderful.

[6:45] Chalia La Tour: Yeah and speaking of like I like just like turning on some music and dancing around.

[6:50] Chalia La Tour: I I like going just uh I mean I am someone who although I really enjoy being around people and I'm like I'm a theater artist so I enjoy groups of people coming together.

[7:02] Chalia La Tour: I'm also someone who's very introverted.

[7:04] Chalia La Tour: So having time by myself to like recharge my own batteries and uh is I'm learning is very important for me and uh so I can be open to other people.

[7:17] Chalia La Tour: So sometimes it is just like sitting in my room for a while and being okay with daydreaming and maybe even like having thoughts that spiral out to whatever and then like bringing myself back or you know, with um try to get better about meditating and yeah, a lot of them are just the ways to like center myself back down to to muse usually it's it's uh you know, negative places usually come in comparison and things that are outside of myself.

[7:48] Chalia La Tour: Uh when usually uh I have a fairly strong sense of self or like believe in the um in the hope of uh uh positive things that can happen for me and for other people.

[8:02] Chalia La Tour: So usually if I can get back to that I and I just weed through all the the stressors and the usually fake things that are popping up.

[8:12] Chalia La Tour: They're usually just thoughts that um make no logical sense to why they're upsetting me. Some things yes, but you know, there's some crazy horrible obvious, you know crap going on in the world right now, but I can't change all those people, but I can yeah, center myself.

[8:31] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[8:32] Leah Walsh: No, it's hard when you know the thoughts you're thinking are irrational.

[8:35] Chalia La Tour: Yeah.

[8:37] Chalia La Tour: But you're still feeling it.

[8:38] Leah Walsh: Right.

[8:38] Leah Walsh: And like I'm I've loved all this like conversation now of like learning to honor those things and that it's not like it's not like positive thinking and like which means like, oh, any negative thought you just can't even embrace or spend time with.

[8:55] Chalia La Tour: Um, and learning what that means to one recognize those thoughts, embrace them as whatever they are while still observing that sometimes they're irrational.

[9:07] Chalia La Tour: Um but I'm learning that that balance of you know, positive thought, but also not uh I guess unrealistic's not the word I want to look for, but I know.

[9:16] Chalia La Tour: I always have trouble with like um like self-help books or things that are uh you know, I enjoy a good positive quote like anyone else, but um that kind of like blanket wash of positive thinking doesn't really sit well with me when I think there's something to be said for like acknowledging the feelings that you're feeling you know, while they're passing through you think that's a valid thing, and then also you know knowing that optimism can be productive, but I think I'm someone who's usually uh I yeah, I've I spent a lot of my time as a person.

[9:58] Chalia La Tour: Whatever I've had that much time as a human as a human.

[10:02] Chalia La Tour: Um I I think uh putting positive thought and optimism at such a high level of like I can think my way out of this, I can't I I can spin out like you know, rose-colored glasses on as often as possible.

[10:18] Chalia La Tour: Um, and just yeah, knowing where that line is where it's the difference between, you know, having a great deal of hope, but being able to like embrace the humanity of whatever's happening, and but not, you know, yeah, not becoming blind to to things.

[10:36] Leah Walsh: To reality in a way.

[10:37] Chalia La Tour: Exactly, exactly.

[10:39] Leah Walsh: So when did you get into acting?

[10:41] Leah Walsh: If you were doing visual art before? Tell me a little bit about that.

[10:44] Chalia La Tour: So I I guess like the first experience acting was like when I was a kid, like six in like church plays and things like that.

[10:53] Chalia La Tour: Um, but my family, my mom was a dancer, my dad was a musician, and so like I grew up in a very artistic family, so like uh and I was someone who, you know, wasn't necessarily like the best mover or didn't gleam on to dance in that way.

[11:13] Chalia La Tour: Also wasn't like extremely skilled in music, and I found like language and just people and pretend really interesting young, and then you know, like I was lucky enough to have yeah, resources where I could do community theater, youth theater, uh all the way through to I did junior college before going to undergrad and had a really actually like really fantastic uh teacher who was just like all about us, uh he used to always call it like he would always say like want us to be just like rock star actors, like that was like always his thing.

[11:52] Chalia La Tour: He's like like Steppenwolf, like Steppenwolf with uh Laura Metcalf.

[11:56] Chalia La Tour: He's like, that's what I want for all of you, like just to be rock stars.

[11:58] Leah Walsh: Yeah, that calf.

[12:00] Leah Walsh: There's worse things to charge your right, like it's it was like she was like the pinnacle, like anytime you talked about something like it's was this in California?

[12:07] Chalia La Tour: In California, yeah, yeah.

[12:09] Chalia La Tour: And so the plan was to be uh to just keep on with acting, and then and I think because it was all of a sudden, you know, I'm an adult and I want to do this as a career, I hadn't thought about all of the logistics of that, all of what that would take.

[12:28] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[12:28] Chalia La Tour: From like my own person and unfortunately it fortunately and unfortunately like it I made the decision to step away from acting and see what else was available to me artistically.

[12:41] Chalia La Tour: Uh and I went into design.

[12:45] Chalia La Tour: I had some like really lovely uh costume design teachers.

[12:48] Chalia La Tour: Also the uh there was a fashion department I like went all over like I wanted to be a fashion designer.

[12:48] Chalia La Tour: I wanted to be a fashion illustrator and then I was a costume designer and I was like welding in the shop and and when I went to undergrad at Cal State East Bay, I went as a design student for costume and I told myself, you know, like this this whole year you're at a new school is in the Bay Area and I said, you know, I wasn't going to tell anyone that I was an actor.

[13:15] Chalia La Tour: I was like I'm not an actor.

[13:17] Leah Walsh: Yeah, exactly.

[13:18] Chalia La Tour: And just like seeing what this artistry was because I found designers were usually more um empowered uh to speak their mind and have like that they're brought in the room for their vision.

[13:31] Leah Walsh: Right.

[13:32] Chalia La Tour: Um and I found it really empowering.

[13:34] Chalia La Tour: Um but then of course there was like a play that came along as a uh they were workshopping um play of Nambi Kelly's Extigany, which is like this um adaptation of Antigone but placed in Chicago and I was like, no I want to go out for this.

[13:51] Chalia La Tour: I had read you know like a friend of mine sides and I was like oh like I used to act like maybe I'll try and I was able to do that play and it kind of just spread I was like oh God, I love this so much.

[14:02] Chalia La Tour: I love language and I love but I uh and then you know, went to I did an apprenticeship in um uh at Actors Theater of Louisville to really like uh be in a theater company again, away from family, away from everything and see like, oh, can I uh handle this life and is this something and you know, luckily I'm a your husband Frankie.

[14:26] Chalia La Tour: I met all these like wonderful people who'd gone to grad school and had been training and had you know done the whole New York thing, which to me like I hadn't even really considered New York.

[14:36] Chalia La Tour: Like all I wanted to do was be like uh the really cool actors who are in San Francisco and like the whole plan was just to like live in San Francisco, and then went on to grad school.

[14:47] Leah Walsh: Did that happen right after Louisville?

[14:49] Chalia La Tour: Yeah, I had knew when I went to uh went for the apprenticeship that well before I went because I I did uh junior college, so I was a little older than a lot of people who were coming into the apprenticeship or even at uh undergrad, like I was already, you know, close to my mid-20s.

[15:10] Chalia La Tour: Um and I'd realized, oh, I haven't been training like everyone else.

[15:16] Chalia La Tour: I didn't I hadn't been doing plays, I hadn't um so I went into the apprenticeship looking for uh guest artists and people to prepare me or at least talk to me about their experiences of where I could go train in grad school seemed like the route for that.

[15:34] Chalia La Tour: So yeah, the so part of me going into the apprenticeship was yes to see like a uh you know, running theater company that's doing new plays.

[15:44] Leah Walsh: You knew that you wanted to find some tools.

[15:46] Chalia La Tour: Yeah, I because I just take the next step.

[15:49] Chalia La Tour: Yeah.

[15:49] Chalia La Tour: Like the my interview for school, I remember James Bundy like asking, Oh, you know, why do you why do you want to go here?

[15:55] Chalia La Tour: Why right now?

[15:56] Chalia La Tour: Like which I guess you know, all schools ask you.

[15:58] Chalia La Tour: Uh but I was like, I just don't want I don't want acting to be a fluke.

[16:02] Chalia La Tour: I don't want to go into the room and 'cause at that time it just felt like, oh, sometimes it's fantastic, and other times I have no idea why I just crashed and burned.

[16:13] Chalia La Tour: Like I have no idea.

[16:15] Chalia La Tour: I don't even know if I'm holding up other people or if I'm being a a a strong enough collaborator if I and you know I had self-doubt because I'm like I don't know if I'm reading this play for what I need to be what information to that point.

[16:29] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[16:30] Chalia La Tour: Which like I was like, oh I know there's something there because sometimes it works out.

[16:34] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[16:35] Chalia La Tour: But that's not really a thing to say I I want to I can go make money at this and make it my life.

[16:42] Leah Walsh: No, but that's huge that you even were able to articulate that that was what you needed.

[16:46] Chalia La Tour: You know which I think only because I was just a little older.

[16:51] Chalia La Tour: I was just like I d you know done the whole like I'm gonna be a designer and then like oh wow if you can't just like say that and not I'm like oh no I don't need to take a studio painting class or anything so yeah I think there was just yeah I was uh happy that at that moment I was just a little honest with myself.

[17:08] Chalia La Tour: Like I'm not ready to move to New York like I need training and yeah I was just very and like Yale wasn't even on the the game plan at all.

[17:21] Chalia La Tour: It was like a last minute audition I decided to do because someone was like oh we get paid nothing as apprentices so like you can actually like go audition at Yale for free and I was like, oh well I guess I'll try it.

[17:32] Chalia La Tour: But it ended up being one of like the yeah, I mean the thing I absolutely needed.

[17:38] Leah Walsh: That's great.

[17:39] Leah Walsh: And now uh don't they pay for the MFA program?

[17:43] Chalia La Tour: Yes so or it's mostly funded?

[17:46] Chalia La Tour: Yeah.

[17:46] Chalia La Tour: And it depends on like um which department you're in.

[17:51] Chalia La Tour: Like I know if you're an actor, like when I came in, there's a uh there was a a loan you would have to take, but it was uh very small in in comparison to uh how much universities usually cost.

[18:03] Chalia La Tour: I think mine was like five thousand or something.

[18:06] Chalia La Tour: But everything else is covered.

[18:09] Chalia La Tour: You get a s you know, a s stipend twice a month for your housing for like every everything.

[18:15] Chalia La Tour: I remember when they started doing that and I was just at my like job was on the ground.

[18:20] Chalia La Tour: It's w I mean now like I'm here, you know, just like doing my day jobs and whatever, and I see folks who are in undergrad and like navigating New York bartending and uh you know, waitressing or doing doing whatever they gotta do.

[18:33] Chalia La Tour: And I'm like, God, if I would take how to do that.

[18:40] Leah Walsh: Yeah, I mean, I could be the like I just feel very privileged that for three years I felt like I was able to make up so much time because I was yes, a lot of us were like running ourselves ragged, but it gave you the space to do that.

[18:55] Chalia La Tour: Like I could be an artist the moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep, and yes, the um the scheduling is you know very crazy and there's a lot of rehearsals and whatever, but there was still even because of that, you know, those like late, late, late night hours and studio spaces always open that people were constantly like making their own shows and writers bringing folks over to like not just you know to like read their new script, do this so they could send it off to this and because there was no reason for you not to, because you don't have to pay for it, like you don't have to you didn't have to be working a side job at the time yeah so just great take advantage yeah that's amazing and then you so you've only been out for like a year and a half right yeah just and it's like still so weird but how do you like being in New York?

[19:45] Chalia La Tour: I mean the opportunity here is just crazy in the most beautiful way.

[19:52] Chalia La Tour: I mean I get like knocked on my ass every day by New York.

[19:56] Chalia La Tour: Like she just I think just like laughs at me every time when I'm like oh waking up and you know getting a cup of coffee and like yeah I can do so exactly where I'm going.

[20:03] Chalia La Tour: I know which way the trains run now and you know and then there'll be something where you're the hour and a half late to like what feels like the biggest opportunity of your life.

[20:12] Leah Walsh: Yeah that is an interesting thing.

[20:14] Leah Walsh: Like figuring out your relationship with the city and it can be such a love hate relationship.

[20:20] Chalia La Tour: Yeah and I've at least I've started to realize like it just like it's like it there's no point like push against it.

[20:27] Chalia La Tour: Like just like you just like have to like run with it all the time.

[20:31] Chalia La Tour: Like just and just like for whatever it's saying like I started realize like hey Shale like you're gonna be late sometimes.

[20:36] Chalia La Tour: So you can choose to freak out or yeah or just like being this is happening.

[20:42] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[20:43] Chalia La Tour: So what are we gonna do?

[20:45] Chalia La Tour: Great we're not gonna freak out.

[20:45] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[20:45] Chalia La Tour: Um but yeah I mean the biggest thing is just yeah the opportunity the amount of community here like ja I I mean I've been able to you know meet artists who were part of the foundation of why I'm able to do some of the things I do.

[21:03] Chalia La Tour: Like artists who uh because this is a hub where everyone comes to kind of like prove themselves, like you can literally meet anyone at any given moment.

[21:13] Chalia La Tour: Like I like we were just talking earlier about oh like I've met like four or five of the people that you've interviewed before all through just the fact that we're all in such close proximity to one another.

[21:24] Chalia La Tour: Like I've probably seen someone's work randomly on a Tuesday when someone's just sent me a text that this thing is happening.

[21:32] Chalia La Tour: And it's been some of like the most uplifting work that I've needed to see.

[21:38] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[21:39] Chalia La Tour: Where I just think in in other cities like I would assume that that's probably harder.

[21:44] Chalia La Tour: Cause it is, you know, you buy your unlimited little pass when you can and then you you're literally the you can see anything.

[21:51] Chalia La Tour: There's so much free stuff going on.

[21:52] Chalia La Tour: I mean yes there's stuff that's like wildly expensive.

[21:55] Chalia La Tour: You know I still haven't seen Hamilton but I you know it's like and that's okay.

[22:00] Chalia La Tour: Because I've still have those people who've gone through there.

[22:02] Chalia La Tour: I've seen them at some random small thing that they've done where exactly I've seen them shine incredibly so yeah it's it's interesting like the the hierarchy like exists but it's also everyone's so on top of each other in this city that you're gonna wind up meeting people and running into people who you who you deem like as on a different level or whatever.

[22:25] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[22:26] Chalia La Tour: You're all gonna end up knowing each other and running into each other anyway.

[22:29] Chalia La Tour: Yeah, which is that's just a fake thing anyway the hierarchy doesn't it doesn't really exist.

[22:34] Chalia La Tour: Yeah I'm not articulating that well but um like I I think I thought like that it would just be like so hard to meet people here or and that's even a thing I have to like talk myself out of constantly now.

[22:47] Chalia La Tour: They're like, oh, like, oh, I wanna I wanna like write a film.

[22:52] Chalia La Tour: I wanna do this.

[22:52] Chalia La Tour: I wanna figure out how I've seen a dance show.

[22:55] Chalia La Tour: Wouldn't it be really cool to be in a dance show?

[22:56] Chalia La Tour: There's no reason why I couldn't be doing any of those things.

[23:00] Chalia La Tour: Like all these people and like the nice thing about New York, this although it's competitive for sure, seems like a lot of people are really open to opening up their work to other artists and knowing that like all of us are like, you know, hoping and praying for that, you know, job that'll pay us a ton of money.

[23:20] Chalia La Tour: But if we want to keep feeling like artists and being artists, it has to be with like, hey, come to my table whenever you can.

[23:27] Chalia La Tour: If you can't uh feed me, I can feed you right now with whatever's creatively on my mind.

[23:32] Chalia La Tour: I mean, that's uh I guess the reason why I'm still here after a year, because year one out of school is so rough and I had like I had some amazing opportunities uh after graduation, but still being in a new city, th and having skills that you've been using but you know, haven't really tested out with folks who don't know you very well, um, can be daunting, but the fact that like the community here is just so beautiful has made it feel like a smart choice.

[24:07] Leah Walsh: So since your parents are artists, what what is their take then on you choosing to be an actor for your career?

[24:15] Chalia La Tour: Oh, yeah, I mean I think it's always so funny, like uh it's never been the weird thing that I want to be an actor, like n Yeah.

[24:25] Chalia La Tour: So it's really like uh like I always get blown away when I hear like even though I mean I get it very much now of like, oh god, you don't want your kid to be broke and running around trying to get, you know, approval in different rooms every day.

[24:39] Chalia La Tour: But yeah, I've never been shocking to them.

[24:45] Chalia La Tour: No, I think the only thing was that um it was just interesting that like neither my mom or my dad had all of although they're both artists, didn't have the same language as me.

[24:57] Chalia La Tour: Like there's no other actor um in my family.

[25:01] Chalia La Tour: Like they like now there's like different ones.

[25:04] Chalia La Tour: Like I've seen certain cousins that I've now noticed, like, oh God, you're a poet.

[25:08] Chalia La Tour: Oh, this person, this cousin, I I haven't really seen much.

[25:11] Chalia La Tour: Like she's out in LA acting, and so but you know, we're distant, so we didn't couldn't support each other in that way.

[25:18] Chalia La Tour: So it I always had support, but it was always in it was very hard for me to articulate uh what it is that I'm doing or why I find certain things interesting, or even just like how I have to work and train and yeah, it like uh because my mother, like she she uh also played piano, so like she could speak to my sister uh in a way, because she my sister's a musician as well.

[25:48] Chalia La Tour: That like I just didn't have the like we collectively didn't have the language to be like, oh Shili's over here, like trying to figure out how to like emotionally connect to crying or whatever, whatever whatever the thing is, and me not being able to articulate like why that's important or why I appreciate it, but you didn't have like the shared vocabulary.

[26:08] Chalia La Tour: Exactly.

[26:09] Chalia La Tour: And even now it's still, you know, yeah, like it and it's still it's still difficult trying to ex even explain like what my artistry and what turns me on in the sense of like uh being like the a vessel of some kind of you know, and sometimes reflecting humanity back to itself but also like very interested in like my experience and my perception of my own humanity um which I know that's laced in like every different art form but I think it's something really particular when you're an actor and you're like I mean I I get transformation but like so much of it is still like oh if you see me cry you're seeing me cry no matter who I'm playing there's something breaking in me right now and I've gotta be vulnerable vulnerable enough to show that or yeah yes this is me you know peacocking right now because guess what I'm I'm capable of doing I'm capable of hurting someone very very badly or saying something horrible.

[27:15] Chalia La Tour: Yeah always always supportive but I think we're still yeah learning learning the language of communicating and uh sharing the the process of it beyond just like hey guys come see me in a show and you know unfortunately right now like my family's all in California like there's very few shows unless I get to do something that's uh televisor stream or like something on camera that they can see me do.

[27:44] Chalia La Tour: Uh so it's it's interesting trying to figure out how to talk about it because I can't just be like, oh yeah come see me in the play.

[27:52] Chalia La Tour: Well you're probably not gonna be able to see me in the play.

[27:56] Leah Walsh: But yeah.

[27:57] Chalia La Tour: Um well one of the reasons I had reached out to Sassy for recommendations was 'cause I'm interested in talking to people who are artists and activists.

[28:06] Leah Walsh: Mm-hmm.

[28:06] Chalia La Tour: And I know she said you were involved in a lot of activist stuff at Yale when you were there.

[28:11] Chalia La Tour: Yeah.

[28:12] Chalia La Tour: Is that something that's always been part of your life?

[28:14] Chalia La Tour: Or was it a more recent thing?

[28:17] Chalia La Tour: No, okay, so that that's been a part of my life for a long time.

[28:27] Chalia La Tour: Like, oh man, I had some like really good opportunities as like a young person.

[28:32] Chalia La Tour: My sister and I were both involved in um student leadership programs at a very young age.

[28:38] Chalia La Tour: So like we had um or yeah, I like I had this uh foundation of knowing that what I do and decisions I make and if I put an effort, I can really help someone. I can really change events that are occurring around me. Like I have that power and I've been lucky enough to be um to have mentors around me who it empowered me like that at like 10 to be like, no, you going sitting next to this kid who doesn't look like you and say be my friend or I'll be yours. You don't maybe have to be mine just yet is a big thing that or you know, you want to change something in your environment, like go do something or speak to the person who has that um uh decision power there. It sounds so simple, but that's huge.

[29:32] Chalia La Tour: Yeah, it's just it really does start when you're a kid. Yeah, just someone saying like you you can of you affect yeah the people around you. You can write a letter, or yeah, even though you're a kid, you can set up a meeting.

[29:44] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[29:45] Chalia La Tour: Yeah, that's great. Well, it's and and I was lucky enough to um, you know, be training and, you know, going to undergrad in the Bay Area where unlike not that I've, you know, had time in all the different, you know, theater and art markets, but I think they're really connected to community and that unlike other places that I've worked at now that it seems more so that um artistry is wanting to people's artistry is wanting to uh stake a claim or something to say like I've done this really well. I can do this really well. I I'm a um I'm a really good artist in the sense of like being well trained and like the products very nice.

[30:33] Chalia La Tour: Um in the Bay Area, I feel like a lot of the art I I experienced and what really ignited me was all so much for that immediate community, like really could care less who was going to say it was great. Not to say no one was out there like hoping to do a bad job, but it was much more important that um, you know, knowing who's represented in the room, who w what voice is the quietest in our community and how can we, you know amplify their voice, uh what's what's really really worrying your next door neighbor and that and seeing the community rally around those artists.

[31:19] Chalia La Tour: Like there's people who have companies out there that don't make a lot of money and you know maybe three out of the five shows you see it'll be like, what did I just see? And I don't know what just happened. But the fact that the community will show up every single time to see that new play, new dance piece, whatever, because they're waiting for that fourth or fifth time when they're like, We're gonna go on this like journey with you for years to see you, you know, mull over whatever big life question because they know in these next or they're gonna see something amazing. And they know that you've thought about them.

[31:56] Chalia La Tour: And and there's stuff like, you know, San Francisco Mind Troop and you know like the Black Panther Party. Like oh everything is just like losing history.

[32:03] Leah Walsh: Exactly.

[32:04] Chalia La Tour: Activism and protest. Yeah, that I think like I didn't even I had never even heard of like artists and theater not being synonymous with social justice work until um I left California.

[32:20] Chalia La Tour: Like I didn't know that there were people who didn't think that they that it was hand in hand.

[32:26] Leah Walsh: That's incredible.

[32:27] Chalia La Tour: Yeah like I I was so blown away. I was like whoa, I didn't know like not that I I don't know I don't know what it was but it was very like jarring at least.

[32:37] Chalia La Tour: So yeah my um foundation was that art is supposed to affect the people around you and affect you and that it's this um shared experience you know that like got me like a little emotional just like even thinking about that's making me emotional too.

[32:55] Leah Walsh: Yeah sorry I was just like that's how I want that's how I want the theater to be everywhere.

[33:00] Chalia La Tour: And it it it's a little I don't know I I actually it takes me so long to understand this um like I I remember being at the I had like a I was with my classmates actually at school and I remember like we were all we were all going through our artist woes and having some big blowout in class and everyone was mad at everyone and everyone's upset about wherever they're at.

[33:25] Chalia La Tour: And I just remember being really because it was they were talking about like maybe I think the top was like work ethic and um uh people really you know coming after each other for who was working harder, who's bringing the best to the table and whatever.

[33:40] Chalia La Tour: And you know, and all this out of like love and fear and and uh and I just remember like kind of blowing up and being like, I don't give a shit about how good anyone is here.

[33:51] Chalia La Tour: Like I don't care about anyone's greatness in this room. Like I don't it's um if it's not for for someone else, if it's n and and and greatness wasn't even the word it was, it was it was another word that was on the table.

[34:06] Chalia La Tour: Like talent or something. Like talent. It was something like that, and it was it's just like it doesn't matter if it's not for you to do with it.

[34:17] Leah Walsh: Yeah, it's like you can yeah, like it just doesn't it doesn't make sense to me why that would be a thing to um to go like what what do you get if if you find out you're the best person in the room or the world or whatever.

[34:33] Chalia La Tour: What is like I don't n understand what what the give back is except for that maybe there's some uh adoration but translates to what?

[34:43] Chalia La Tour: Like it like I it doesn't it doesn't compute. Um so and that's just like a tangent, but while I was at Yale, I was lucky enough that I did have people like in my class and in the years above me who invited me into things like folks, which is um uh black affinity and solidarity group that was founded by Angela Bassett, uh to bring to to empower the black students there as well as uh connect them with the artistry that was happening at Yale Rep with August Wilson being there and being like, oh, this is um a misconnection here if we don't rally together.

[35:22] Leah Walsh: Are is Yale rep not really very well integrated with the grad program?

[35:27] Chalia La Tour: It does it, I mean it's not there's a lot of crossover, especially with uh the design departments. You from my understanding, and I hope I'm not like misquoting anybody, like it there's um opportunities for designers to um like interview for various jobs.

[35:47] Chalia La Tour: A lot of them by the time they leave, they will have designed uh a rep show at some point, um, or been an assistant or something like that, similarly to the directors, dramaturges, all the uh theater management folk, like they work on those shows.

[36:03] Chalia La Tour: Like they're I mean, some of them are damn near running the thing. And then actors also have the the opportunity to audition.

[36:09] Chalia La Tour: Like I was lucky enough to be in a rep show my uh third year, and every actor there will have understudied, I think at least twice.

[36:20] Leah Walsh: Okay.

[36:20] Chalia La Tour: So so you are integrated in a certain way.

[36:23] Chalia La Tour: Um the only thing that sucks is like the theater's right there and the the schedule is so jam-packed, you can't necessarily always have the time to go just like watch some really fantastic artists um just work.

[36:37] Leah Walsh: Um sorry, side note.

[36:39] Chalia La Tour: Oh yeah.

[36:40] Chalia La Tour: Yeah, yeah, but I mean they they are connected, but it isn't like um like for actors, it isn't uh a guarantee that you're gonna work at Yale Rep.

[36:49] Leah Walsh: No, yeah, or or be in there and be except for that you will be able to understudy.

[36:54] Chalia La Tour: Um but the nice thing is like they do try to uh make sure that we know that those artists are available.

[37:01] Chalia La Tour: Um but I was oh but with so yeah yes it's it she was she was connecting because it was a very particular time and there were so few black actors or actors of color in general that she was like ah like the like August Wilson's here.

[37:19] Chalia La Tour: Amazing stuff is happening right here right now like we gotta connect. And while I was there um folks like there were just these beautiful people who were just coming together and wanting to make bring do the complete Wilson cycle and like that was and then like more people started to like it w the the organization started to shift to be uh not only an affinity group for solidarity but also a producing group um where we would do reading series and really empower each other to have space to tell black stories because uh one of the conversations on the table was that you know it uh and I think uh most schools and but it's getting better that there isn't a lot of um material outside of a white canon to practice in and to know what that means and 'cause I because for black actor, at least for me, it's a different level of uh vulnerability and stakes for me to get up and play a storyline that could have been my grandmother's story.

[38:28] Leah Walsh: Right.

[38:28] Chalia La Tour: It is but of course it's a very different thing for me to um do a a play that's uh that's maybe you know it's thought of for a a white actor and I get to grow my empathy that way, but it's like I'm not growing this thing of empowering my own experience to then have a very uh solid, yeah, solid voice to stand on as an artist.

[38:53] Chalia La Tour: Like what does that mean to be so close to myself, right? On stage. Cause I think that's a hard thing too, and a lot of actors of color don't get that in their training programs.

[39:04] Leah Walsh: Um yeah, the the traditions that a lot of the training programs are built on are very they stick to the tradition so closely that they don't allow other stories in or more modern plays or different experiences.

[39:17] Chalia La Tour: Yeah.

[39:18] Chalia La Tour: I know I know we recently had for Juilliard a big alumni reunion because it was the 50th anniversary of the program.

[39:26] Leah Walsh: Congrats, Juilliard.

[39:27] Chalia La Tour: Yay, Juilliard. Um, but I know that they in one of the speeches, they specifically said that they're working with this company, Art Equity.

[39:34] Leah Walsh: Yes, who's she g uh Carvin Morgan who is with uh oh sorry, I love that.

[39:39] Chalia La Tour: Yeah, I don't know that much about them yet, but I was excited that they're amazing.

[39:43] Chalia La Tour: That they're specifically working with them to kind of re-evaluate where the program is and how can they do better and how can they think broader and um so I was excited about that.

[39:51] Leah Walsh: Ah, that makes me so.

[39:52] Chalia La Tour: I know it's you know s some of it they've been working with for a long time and some of it it's like it's late, but they're trying.

[40:01] Leah Walsh: So I guess like, okay.

[40:02] Chalia La Tour: Well, and that um and I know you know Mauricio Salgado.

[40:06] Leah Walsh: Yeah, I know he said he just did a he like posted in our alumni Facebook group and said that he just did a training program with them.

[40:12] Chalia La Tour: So it seems like anything Mauricio's, I'm bored with, I'm on board with.

[40:16] Chalia La Tour: Yeah, that talk about oh, I've had Mauricio's been someone who's although we've we have never met, we've had these amazing phone conversations.

[40:28] Chalia La Tour: Cause and this is gonna tie back to your question of just like activism at Yale.

[40:33] Chalia La Tour: But part of the reason why I uh felt empowered to do some of the work that I was doing with other students and affinity groups there was because of um Mauricio and works uh that he was doing at Brown Trinity and their um uh demands letter that that they posted or had um I mean they had a whole week long of events of them really trying to deconstruct uh their training and open up space for conversations that they felt weren't happening and they had kind of like come to a wall that like it it needed to happen right then.

[41:13] Chalia La Tour: But similarly at Yale, uh there were there's myself, some uh some of the leaders from folks, as well as um Asian Potluck, which is the Asian and Asian American uh affinity group, a collectivo that is uh Latinx uh students.

[41:35] Chalia La Tour: Um this is all just within the drama program.

[41:37] Chalia La Tour: Yeah, this uh the I I was just really lucky that in my last year, like there were just these groups that started um popping up, and I and I felt happy about the work we've been doing with folks because I think happily there there were um students in who identified in in ways that uh weren't well widely represented in the industry who started to uh use the folks' model a little bit and then you know change it for what their community needed, and you just saw this like blossoming of just uh activist leaders all across uh the school of drama the school of drama isn't that big and also at the same time there were all these amazing um specifically like black queer women and Latinx leaders from the undergrad who were just like taking on um uh the the naming uh of the Calhoun College and uh really like going after like a really embedded racism in the overall university.

[42:48] Chalia La Tour: Yeah it was just like a really exciting time that people I mean unfortunately uh a lot of it was uh it's just gonna make me emotional but that's just what's gonna be just like with how much just uh murder and hate was happening and what was happening you know on our our campus like I mean I I was so upset how I didn't really know the the everyday struggles of a lot of the uh brown undergrads and what they were facing in in a you know very prestigious Ivy League school right uh that made them feel very belittled and dehumanized and um yeah I just feel very privileged that I was around so many students who just like were sick of it and willing to put um their opportunity at this school online on on the line because I know even for me, like we were the like these uh various affinity groups leaders of those different groups came together and there was also you know uh an a white allies group as well uh who we all came together and we um uh with the help of of you know going around to like all the students there's many students who who were willing to sign, you know, wrote a demands letter to our faculty and we all like came together and you know this was over like um months of us meeting together, you know, after classes at like midnight, uh because we were all like, hey, we're the some of the leaders in our various communities, like we we can't be sitting in this like seat of privilege and not do something, at least within our own school.

[44:48] Chalia La Tour: Like maybe this won't change a cop's idea the next time he, you know, sees a black person in a car or just like living and not want to hurt him, but um, and that's not to, you know, whatever. Um but like we can change the um or we can stop accepting the limitations of our education right now that belittle or dehumanize our experience and not and not just like um stalk it stop uh uh accepting it, but also take responsibility that like I've, you know, me as a black woman at Yale, I've been invited to be an artist here. I've uh I I've been, you know, accepted by all these different leaders in our community who want to teach me and collaborate with me. I have a responsibility to show up with my experience and challenge them.

Or I'm not holding up my half of the deal. So yeah, I was lucky to be with those folks and like Penna Lender a letter of demands. We sat down with our administrators one night with a, you know, and none of this was easy or clean or um always even the most productive. But um I think in that moment a lot of conversations that weren't given room were starting to. And even like now I see folks who are in the first and second year right now at the school, and you talk to them about the education they're having. You would have no idea that conversations like this were having to be had in um dark rooms late at night. Really don't even like they they're they like you see this like wonderful, like queer artists who just like, why wouldn't I live as out loud as I am?

Like, of course, like I demand you know, this piece of work and this artist here, and you know, I might seem like the program is more receptive to it now because of those conversations you guys had. I think so. I think so. That's really exciting. Yeah, it makes me very happy. Like, I mean, yeah, you look at these classes and like they're the brownest and queerest like the school has ever been, and it's beautiful, and you see um people just getting challenged and like I'm so excited for like I'm I'm excited that the things me and the other leaders at the time were worried about bringing up is everyday conversation there like so I d I don't necessarily know like how day-to-day classes are but I do know it's it's a more open place to discuss those things.

That's huge. I mean it's the first step but that's huge. Yeah. To just be able to talk about things. And be really hard to like it should be messy. Like it's okay. It's okay that I mean you see it happening throughout our society right now like how much we just need to be able to at least talk about things.

[48:06] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[48:07] Chalia La Tour: And it can be so fraught.

[48:10] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[48:11] Chalia La Tour: And it's and it's really hard because it is there's so many um injustices that are so laced in our just straight up foundation of our country um right that the uh how do you even start yeah how do you even start to try to fix anything and and even with that like the the nice thing with um the different uh students and artists I was around um everyone was um one honest with like I can speak from my uh experience my experience is also like I'm I'm a light skinned black woman that's a very particular experience. I'm uh also someone who grew up in California. Right. Very, very different experience of like my blackness or conversation to it, or even just um, you know, California just kind of has this overall idea of uh whether it's genuine or not.

Like we're all one and we're the melting pot. So like an up can be a positive, a negative as well. And when it comes to like knowing what to do, it's like one, like you have your experience, like that's truth. Sorry, no matter what, but it it's gonna get challenged. But if you can at least like sit in your truth and have a conversation with someone, something's gonna come up that the other person didn't know. Just because like I like even sitting across from you, like I I'm never gonna have your experience. But me as like a human who wants to be more compassionate and empathetic. Like I'm counting on you telling your story and your experience because I'm never gonna know that.

[50:11] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[50:11] Chalia La Tour: Like we owe that to each other, because we're yeah. Like we will like I was having a conversation with another friend the other day of of how interesting that is about like uh oh, like what does it mean to like take care of your fellow human beings? And like we were like going down this like spiral, and like, oh why is that even necessary? Like, why why is that needed? Um, beyond the fact that it just like sounds nice, but just that, like you can only live this one experience, but that's not your singular experience isn't enough to get the full beauty and breadth of this life, and especially for us who are uh artists.

[50:52] Leah Walsh: Yeah, and we want to tell the truth.

[50:54] Chalia La Tour: Well, that's what, you know. I was thinking about this. Um, our country's so huge. And I I worry about people who don't have the curiosity to seek out other people's experiences.

[51:07] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[51:08] Chalia La Tour: And who really do live in an area where everyone else looks like them and they don't need to interact with people who come from different backgrounds or different income levels or whatever it is. And I know there's something with most artists or there's something that I see in the people around me that have that curiosity where they're circ actively searching out other stories and other um people's experiences to try to learn more about what everyone else is going through.

[51:37] Leah Walsh: Mm-hmm.

[51:38] Chalia La Tour: I wonder I wonder what those people who just don't have that curiosity how how they how we can reach them or how they can expand their view.

[51:50] Leah Walsh: I don't know.

[51:51] Chalia La Tour: Some people love that isolation.

[51:54] Leah Walsh: Right.

[51:55] Chalia La Tour: It doesn't make them stretch or challenge themselves or you know it's painful to grow sometimes.

[52:02] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[52:03] Chalia La Tour: Well anyway, I don't know where I'm going with that but I I do I worry about that. And I think it's like I think yeah like for us as artists we have that curiosity and that's like why we have to like keep creating because it's this and can well even like I think sometimes beyond creating it's like we have to keep connecting.

[52:08] Leah Walsh: We have to keep connecting to like whatever that um curiosity is.

[52:28] Chalia La Tour: And I think because like we have that need and just like innate uh driver that you're right like not everyone has like I feel like it's again like it's our job to then see um yeah what is this dude who's like sitting on a mountain right now who like only needs to talk to like the three people he sees I don't know if they've even discussed but you know it's like see a few people and his routine is just fine I wonder uh yeah just like what it is that he values and finds um wildly necessary in his life because it might just I I wonder I wonder at least like if for us who who yeah connecting to people and empathizing is easier or just a thing we uh yeah gleam towards like what is um is there a reason why we're we just have like such an uh overflowing amount of that because there's other things that like I mean I'm no angel like there's other stuff that like I should care about that I don't as much right like you know like it's uh like I'm learning like I gotta learn to care about this environment more like I have to learn like what this means um whereas someone else who maybe can't see his or her neighbor very well can like really see why that like tree's gonna fall down next year or it's gonna grow really strong.

[54:10] Leah Walsh: Right.

[54:10] Chalia La Tour: We all we all have the the lens we see things through or the there's so many things to learn about and care about.

[54:17] Leah Walsh: Yeah and how to and how to just link across.

[54:20] Chalia La Tour: And then also I I mean, and this is just like my big hope of the whole world. Like I just like I just think it's so unfortunate that there are so many ways we can do good and then like so many ways we can do such like bad.

[54:37] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[54:37] Chalia La Tour: And the and I mean and these are very general uh terms but just like, you know, hating our neighbors, like uh wanting to like tear people down, like whatever that is um, or holding some really strong um uh prejudices and uh stereotypes of people. Like if anything if there was just so a way like I don't know what it is to just for for it not to be that easy. Like I feel like it's in certain places in the country and again like I can only speak about this country like it is so easy to be a racist.

[55:02] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[55:02] Chalia La Tour: It is so easy to be a misogynist. It's it's so easy to be all of these things and never be challenged. Never to have an opportunity.

[55:24] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[55:26] Chalia La Tour: That's not how everyone lives their life. And I'm sure that that uh is tied with and this is something I have to work better at but um you know of course like uh changing policies and laws to where uh pe the like people have no because that's the that's the sad thing like certain dehumanizing points of view are supported by our laws and legislations.

[55:49] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[55:49] Chalia La Tour: So in this country it is easy to stay a racist and to um stay a mass say all these things that it's it's hard to even to me, like, yeah, we can we can go and think like what the big conversation or what people keep saying is like, oh, if we could just change the Midwest's idea of da da da it's like that's just so uh silly because why when they are in a country that supports uh most of their viewpoints, and again, not that every uh one in the Midwest has a negative view of someone who's not like them, because obviously the East and West Coast have just a wildly negative view of people they don't know.

[56:31] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[56:31] Chalia La Tour: But just like you can't just it's very hard to tell someone to not be racist or not be a misogynist when their country is built on it and thrives in it and and is supporting examples of people in power who are thriving that way. My hope would be that I just hope that there's just a time when it's just not so easy to stay in those mindsets.

[56:57] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[56:58] Chalia La Tour: Cause it's fine to like not know certain things to not um uh until until you get a a resource or something that will open you up to a new idea. But it's just so sad that so many people don't have the resource, or are they they've no they can um wake up in the morning racist, go do every single event of their life in that day, and then go home racist and not once be challenged by it.

[57:29] Chalia La Tour: And I think that's so unfortunate and I'm you know, happy that like we are in like the age of um so much media and like internet connection. So like you hope that there's you know now all this influx of information and just now it's like, oh well, what are people gonna do with it? You hope that it's a positive influence and not a negative influence.

[57:48] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[57:53] Chalia La Tour: Well, it's the thing, it's like all the information's gonna be out there now.

[57:56] Leah Walsh: Yeah, and people can biased information.

[57:58] Chalia La Tour: It's interesting because it can be like such a tool for change, and like you can find learn you can learn about anything you want online, but then you can also find the people who are only gonna support your your um narrow view about whatever too, and just keep yourself there if you really want to.

[58:21] Leah Walsh: Anyway, these are very large, large ideas.

[58:25] Chalia La Tour: Yeah. Can we talk a little bit about um maybe these are two separate questions? Sorry. Um the ways you're still feeling like you're taking action in your life since you left school, now that you're in this larger community of artists in New York, and also like functioning now within the industry and the parts of your creativity that go towards traditional auditions and TV work and the structure of the industry, like how you're finding a way to stay stay an individual and not feel like you need to fit into their uh mold.

[59:03] Chalia La Tour: Oh yeah, I mean it's hard. It's uh I mean well, okay. Uh sorry, those were kind of kind of two different questions, maybe.

[59:11] Leah Walsh: No, that was great because I knowing me, like I'm gonna ping from like this corner to that corner.

[59:15] Chalia La Tour: Yeah, so hopefully it'll just like keep me bouncing around. But at least from school and things I've been able to hold on to um uh well uh a lot of the uh friends and and leaders of those different affinity groups, like we still have an email chain together. We still know what's um going on with folks, like are a lot of them in New York after graduation?

[59:18] Chalia La Tour: Uh a lot of them are. A lot of them are. Um Hi guys. So this is the small section where we missed the audio. Basically, Shalia is saying that um now that she's done at Yale, the work is continuing there with the current students. She's being inspired by what um older alumni have been reporting back from the ways they're continuing the work out in the world.

[1:00:03] Chalia La Tour: But right now, being a year and a half out of school and living in New York, she is consciously taking a bit of a step back from activism to learn about the new city and listen to what is already being done around her, what other people are already doing here and what is needed, um, before she steps back in.

[1:00:21] Leah Walsh: So here we go.

[1:00:22] Chalia La Tour: Activism and specifically, like I'm not I'm not from New York and New York is just riddled with so much uh beautiful history of activism and just people obviously uh fighting for their their place in the world and the and their like biggest most beautiful dream. So part of like this year is like I've really felt like I needed to just like be here and see what I'm in before I'm like I got something to tell you about see what's already happening and see what I can support and then notice where I have a uh a particular thing that someone else might not have had experience to, and then place that.

[1:01:05] Leah Walsh: That's smart.

[1:01:07] Chalia La Tour: And then when it comes to industry, I'm still trying not to be in the boxes and Yeah, it's just I feel like it's easy sometimes because you know, you want to get the job that pays you money. It's easy to be intimidated by the people who have power instead of seeing it as they want me to come in the room with who I am and with opinions.

[1:01:30] Leah Walsh: It's easy to kind of go in and be like, what do you want me to be?

[1:01:33] Chalia La Tour: Yeah. If I have a thought run through my head, like I'm just so mad when that thought pops it's so expensive. Or let me just be agreeable and be easy to work with and Or auditions where I'm like I'm I I like am notorious like in my own little room by myself of like spending so much time thinking about like, oh well what do I need to wear and how should I wear my hair? How should I do headshot look like it's yeah, like should I really update this part of it? Instead of worrying about like, am I gonna kill this like this piece of like language right now and coming with like a person that they can see, which is unfortunate, but it

[1:01:58] Leah Walsh: No, I understand that.

[1:02:13] Chalia La Tour: Yeah, and it's like and I'm glad just it's just so uh and there's just like things with like still being a a woman in this industry that no matter how much everyone is talking about, you know, different the faces and what and body types and whatever that are being put out. I mean it's there's still uh things that are are seen as more marketable and you know, sometimes sometimes I hear it and I'm like, okay, I see I see the project you're doing, I see why you're calling for this.

[1:02:45] Chalia La Tour: Um it's um it's a film about a a cyclist who's cycled all the way, okay. Maybe you should look like you've cycled all your life. I get that, but the Yeah, like why do I have to why am I thinking about do I look sexy when I'm going in for this like detective?

[1:03:04] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[1:03:04] Chalia La Tour: I was like, Oh, is it I'm pretty sure.

[1:03:08] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[1:03:08] Chalia La Tour: And it's just like thanks still, and starting to uh just be it's it's a I'm I'm at least in a funny place where I'm I'm still uh having that conversation myself of like what's the business what is me as a a business when I walk around and what do I want to represent?

[1:03:29] Chalia La Tour: And like I'm still at that point where some a good amount of cast productors have seen me before, but enough to where they have an idea, but maybe not necessarily like a solid viewpoint of me. Maybe I don't know. Maybe they do, but they like I can like trying for it not to be like, oh, what do they want? But like I want to teach them who I am, and you know, me thinking about like, oh, do I wanna is I have certain ideas of like the kind of woman I want to represent on uh on screens and on stages, but then there's also part of me that's like oh, but I'm also an actor who loves to like transform and like do this thing, so right it like it it it's I'm just learning like it's just a decision to be made, and that it's just trying to stay uh empowered that it's my decision.

[1:04:24] Leah Walsh: If you are having a day where you're feeling really uninspired and kind of down and out, are there any concrete things that you reach for again and again, like a book or a place that you go or um music that you listen to?

[1:04:39] Chalia La Tour: Uh yeah. Uh there's a book uh classmate of mine, Janelle Chiu gave to me uh randomly when I was just like having a bad day, and she didn't tell me why, she's just like, You look like you could use this book, and it was called The Art of Happiness.

[1:04:53] Leah Walsh: Okay.

[1:04:54] Chalia La Tour: Um, and it's these uh conversations with the Dalai Lama, uh just going like across just like what is happiness. I pick I actually kept that book in my bag almost for like six months straight, right out of school, and just like keep reading it like on the subway and it really helped.

[1:05:12] Chalia La Tour: Um, or just put things in perspective. Music, uh I'm like all for any just badass girl anthem that makes me walk around the city like whatever, like Demi Lovato's confident is just such everything right now, it makes me feel so good.

[1:05:31] Chalia La Tour: Um places I can be where I go, oh well I mean, well, I guess in the is it in the city, but uh everybody knows about Prospect Park. But like any or I can just like for a little bit feel like I'm uh not in the city, or all also it's like any place that can just like make me feel like uh the city is manageable.

[1:05:55] Chalia La Tour: Like I love that I take the uh J or the N to work most mornings, or from going into the city for uh an audition from Brooklyn. And then if it's early enough in the morning, like the sunrise is either like just happen, or you know, it's it's just starting to get light out, and you go over the bridge and you can literally just like see yourself like plunging into Manhattan, right?

[1:06:19] Chalia La Tour: And there is nothing more empowering than just being like I choose you, like and I'm gonna like take you over. And the city just it's really just this small place. You're just this thing, and you're not that scary.

[1:06:31] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[1:06:32] Chalia La Tour: I just and like I like my last apartment had a rooftop, and just going and just like sitting on the roof, and again, it was like I was able to like look at you know, Manhattan from a distance. Like all these things that could just like put me anything that'll just like put me in a new weird perspective.

[1:06:50] Chalia La Tour: I just uh appreciate and again, introvertie type person. Just sometimes just being able to sit in an enclosed like four-wall space and just have some daydream.

[1:07:06] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[1:07:07] Chalia La Tour: Our minds are creative, just daydream for a while. Sometimes just like don't do anything.

[1:07:10] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[1:07:11] Chalia La Tour: And just imagine the technology now. It's really easy to always have like if you're even if you have that time alone in your room, like to always have music on or always have the TV on or always have your phone in your hand or whatever.

[1:07:23] Leah Walsh: And I think to see what your brain will do without it.

[1:07:26] Chalia La Tour: Let it wander.

[1:07:27] Leah Walsh: Yeah. Um, and then the last question is uh have you seen anything recently that you want to recommend of any art form?

[1:07:34] Chalia La Tour: Hmm.

[1:07:37] Chalia La Tour: Been so bad lately. Let's see. What have I seen?

[1:07:40] Chalia La Tour: Oh, but it's closing now.

[1:07:45] Leah Walsh: Does it have boo theater.

[1:07:47] Chalia La Tour: No, anything.

[1:07:48] Leah Walsh: Did it close?

[1:07:48] Chalia La Tour: I think it closed yesterday.

[1:07:50] Leah Walsh: Damn it.

[1:07:50] Chalia La Tour: That's okay. Um, no, one of my dear friends, Jordan Castile, uh Nights in Harlem.

[1:07:57] Leah Walsh: Uh oh, Casey Cap would she uh well if you ever get a chance to see any of her work, she's been documenting um different specifically uh black male subjects uh that she'll subjects, whatever like folks she'll meet uh while she's in Harlem, and she's been doing these wonderful portraits.

[1:08:19] Chalia La Tour: Uh just really I think uh visually humanizing black men in ways that they usually aren't.

[1:08:27] Leah Walsh: Um say her name one more time.

[1:08:29] Chalia La Tour: Uh Jordan Castile.

[1:08:30] Leah Walsh: Okay.

[1:08:31] Chalia La Tour: Um I'm just gonna shout out all my friends because do it do it.

[1:08:34] Chalia La Tour: Um also uh too heavy for your pocket about at Radabot Theater. My classmate Brandon Kitty's freaking fancy.

[1:08:44] Chalia La Tour: I am trying to see it next week. I really hope I can get in.

[1:08:47] Leah Walsh: Okay.

[1:08:47] Chalia La Tour: It's really it's really beautiful.

[1:08:49] Leah Walsh: Yeah he told me that was a yellow playwright.

[1:08:51] Chalia La Tour: Mm-hmm.

[1:08:52] Leah Walsh: Yeah.

[1:08:52] Chalia La Tour: Okay. And again, uh th two people who I think are doing work that is just really so uh full of love and compassion that I think opens up everyone else to have a little bit more like special it's uh or not but I know too heavy for your pocket.

[1:09:14] Chalia La Tour: Like I mean that's it's such a it says on the I'm not ruining anything. There's uh you know it does speak about the uh Freedom Riders but it talks about a perspective on the civil rights movement that we don't usually get to see, which is you know not not every young black person was like, yeah, civil rights like some of thought that it wasn't being done necessarily in the best way or at the right time or there was a l there was a lot to lose and you get to see it through these eyes of um just people who are really young.

[1:09:47] Chalia La Tour: You know it's it's not the Martin Luther Kings and the Malcolm X's it's these, you know, broke twenty year olds and how they're gonna relate to this big conversation of race and what does it mean to have freedom um both from these um male and female perspectives that I think is really well done.

[1:10:09] Chalia La Tour: And then, yeah, if you get a chance to see uh Jordan's work.

[1:10:15] Leah Walsh: Ah, okay. Those are the ones.

[1:10:21] Leah Walsh: Well, Chalia, thank you so much. This was great.

[1:10:24] Chalia La Tour: Thanks, man. It's such a pleasure.

[1:10:26] Leah Walsh: Thanks so much.

[1:10:37] Leah Walsh: Thank you for listening to the Compass Podcast. If you find these conversations valuable to your life as an artist and would like to support the ongoing production of The Compass, please consider becoming a patron at patreon.com slash The Compass Podcast. Pledges start at as little as one dollar a month. You'll get access to bonus content and anything you can give will be greatly appreciated. Also, if you have a moment, please rate or review in iTunes. Every little bit helps other listeners to find the podcast.

[1:11:06] Leah Walsh: I'd like to thank the following people for their generosity. The Compass Cover Art is by Kim Miller, music by Brandon Speth, audio assistance from Nick Choxie, and a special thanks to Frankie J. Alvarez. See you next time.