Mark Evans Studio

  I heard someone say something on a podcast recently that has been echoing around my head ever since: “Stop trying so hard to make the right choice.” It struck me because it feels so relevant to life in general, but especially to artists. And for us as actors, it couldn’t be more applicable. So much of an actor’s life is spent searching for “the right.” The right interpretation. The right emotion. The right objective. The right way to deliver a line. The right audition. The right agent. The right career move. We become convinced that somewhere out there is a correct answer, and if we can just think hard enough or prepare long enough, we’ll find it. But acting doesn’t work that way. Neither does life. The best work doesn’t come from trying to be right. It comes from being present. From listening. From responding truthfully. From allowing yourself to be actually affected by what’s happening instead of trying to manufacture the “correct” performance.  When you’re focused on maki...

  I recently heard a phrase on a friend’s podcast that resonated enough to want to share it with you all: “The opposite of shame is belonging.” The more I sat with it, the more I realized how deeply it applies to actors. The entertainment industry can unintentionally (and, let’s face it, sometimes intentionally) cultivate shame. We compare ourselves to others. We wonder if we’re talented enough, experienced enough, attractive enough, young enough, old enough, connected enough, or successful enough. We walk into rooms wondering if we deserve to be there at all.  Over time, that inner voice can become very powerful. Shame whispers, You don’t belong here.  But belonging says something entirely different.  Belonging says, You are enough exactly as you are. As actors, we often spend our careers searching for permission. Permission to take up space. Permission to be vulnerable. Permission to fail. Permission to be ourselves. The truth is, and those of you in our ongoing cl...

  Change is rarely comfortable. Even when it’s something we want, it often arrives wrapped in uncertainty, vulnerability, and a healthy dose of self-doubt. It asks us to leave behind what is familiar and step into territory we can’t fully predict. Yet, when I look back on my life, I realize that every meaningful chapter began with a willingness to embrace change. I was born on a farm in North Wales. As a child, the world felt small, defined by fields, livestock, and a close-knit community. It was a wonderful place to grow up, but if you’d told that young boy where life would eventually take him, he probably wouldn’t have believed you. Today, I own a home in New Jersey and have a family of my own. The distance between those two realities is measured in far more than miles. It represents countless decisions, risks, and moments of uncertainty. Moving countries, building a career, creating a home, and establishing roots in a completely different place all required embracing change, eve...

Lately I’ve been listening to the West End cast recording of the Benjamin Button musical, and it’s been sitting with me in a way I didn’t expect.  I mean, it’s STUNNING! Really wonderful music. But, what I’m referring to is something else. Like the film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, the story follows a man who is born old and ages in reverse. Listening to the music this time, I found myself thinking less about the fantasy of it and more about the philosophy behind it. Imagine entering the world with all the wisdom you would ever possess. You already understand what matters. You already know not to waste time. You already know which arguments aren’t worth having, which fears are unnecessary, and which moments deserve your full attention. And then, instead of your body slowly failing you as you age, it does the opposite. Every year you become stronger. More capable. More energetic. More physically free. It completely flips the human experience upside down. Because for most of ...

  I’ve written about ambivalence before, and I’m writing about it again deliberately. Not because I’ve run out of things to say, but because I think it’s one of those emotional experiences we constantly try to rush ourselves out of. We want certainty. We want clarity. We want to know exactly how we feel so we can make a clean decision and move on. But life rarely works that way. It’s one of the most valuable things my therapist ever helped me to understand. Our relationships to people, places, work, versions of ourselves, and even dreams can be deeply complicated. You can love something and still feel exhausted by it. You can miss someone and know they are not good for you. You can be grateful for a place while also wanting to leave it behind. These truths can exist at the same time. Ambivalence is uncomfortable because it asks us to tolerate contradiction. It asks us not to flatten our feelings into something simpler just because simplicity feels safer. Often, when we experience c...

I recently found myself in a long, winding conversation about artificial intelligence and the quiet fear that seems to follow it everywhere. Not the loud, cinematic kind of fear, but something subtler - a shared uncertainty about what comes next. The truth is, no one really knows how much of an impact AI will have on our world. We can make predictions, build models, and speculate endlessly, but the reality is that we are stepping into something fundamentally unpredictable. What struck me most was how this uncertainty lands hardest on young people. Students are choosing degrees, investing time, money, and identity into specific fields, only to face the possibility that those roles may not exist in the same way - or at all - by the time they graduate. Entire career paths could shift or disappear. Jobs that once required years of training might be performed faster, cheaper, and more efficiently by machines. It raises a difficult question: what does it mean to prepare for a future that ref...