Small town boy
By: Jude Campbell
Date: August 27, 2010
Source: eVent Magazine

 

Although it’s been years since he left behind the tedium of ‘joe-jobs’ to pursue a career in acting, the memories and the bust-a-gut trying to break into show biz are still there. Those memories keep actor Aaron Douglas on the straight and narrow. Keep him a small-town Kelowna boy who made it big, even while he hobnobs with the rich and famous in Tinsel Town and abroad.

Douglas got his chance to grab the brass ring when he was cast as Chief Galen Tyrol in the long-running sc-fi Battlestar Galactica. “I was blessed with Battlestar,” he recalled. “It was the absolute best thing. I still get recognized for the role. Chief was a great character, it was a great show and I still get to go to conventions all over the world because of it.”

But jet-setting to distant places, sitting around on Hollywood stage sets chatting with the likes of Hugh Jackman or being commended for his screen work by Robin Williams took perseverance. The road to that point started when Douglas was a high school senior at KLO Secondary School, taking to the stage in drama class under the tutelage of teacher/thespian Neal Facey, founder of Viva Musica. A young Douglas had stints with Shakespeare in the Park and dinner theatre at a local restaurant. People told him he had a commanding stage presence. People told him he “was really good” and “a natural”. But it took a comment and a promise from a bonafide acting instructor at the prestigious William Davis Centre for Actors Studies to fan the fire in his heart. “It was the first time someone ‘legitimate’ told me I had ‘it,'” Douglas recalled. “The school only accepts 12 people a year and you have to audition to be accepted. He said he’d save a spot, guarantee a spot for me if I wanted in. So, I quit my day job at Earls on Top (in Vancouver) and went to acting school fulltime,” he said.

Douglas left behind his years of laying down flooring in Kelowna and more years being a nutrition rep and fitness gym guru at the coast. With the blessing and steadfast support of his family, Douglas took his first steps into what would evolve into a bright future, securing an agent in 2000 and landing his first screen roles just three years later. “It’s taken a lot of belief in myself, setting goals and looking for opportunities,” Douglas added. “It takes work. The norm is if you do 19 auditions over 19 weeks, expect to land one role. And that might be four, maybe five lines and a paycheque of $600 for the month. That’s why we have day jobs,” he explained. “You have to develop a thick skin. You face constant rejection, but you have to keep going back,” he said. “You have to learn that it’s not personal. I’ve lost roles to the red-haired guy, the younger guy, the older guy, the shorter guy, the taller guy, the Chinese guy, the other guy and the girl. But the key is building a tool kit, developing a strategy and surrounding yourself with people who are positive and supportive of you and your goals,” Douglas said.

One of those forever supportive people has been his Kelowna-based brother Chris, a psychologist, counsellor and author of ‘Human: An Operator’s Manual’ or as Aaron likes to quip “human for dummies.” The siblings have teamed up to offer an interesting evening for anyone, including would-be actors, looking for direction and advice in achieving their optimum potential in all aspects of life. “I’ll tell my tale, give people the nuts and bolts of how to make successful life decisions, and Aaron will be there for eye candy,” Chris Douglas said. “He’s a perfect example of overcoming adversity, achieving your goals and dreams. There are principles to his success that can be brought into and applied to your life.”

Douglas’ book launch coincides with the evening lecture which is set for Oct. 1 at the Rotary Centre for the Arts. On stage, Aaron will tell his stories of breaking into acting, overcoming obstacles and tell-all stories from Hollywood sets and personal experiences with the stars. “It can be a really daunting thing, a daunting industry, but not an impossible one,” he said. “One of the first things you have to do is identify who around you is supportive and who’s toxic. Get rid of the toxic ones. They need to be told to shut up, leave you alone or asked to go away,” he said. “It is possible to break into the industry. You can be just a Kelowna boy and make it. I did.”

Since making it in the big leagues, Douglas no longer needs to go through the grueling multi-auditions process, as roles and offers come to him. The bulk of his work is filmed in Vancouver or Toronto, with stints in Los Angeles where he did his most recent series, The Bridge. But L.A. is a city where he drops in and gets out as soon as he can. “L.A. is a place that eats your very soul,” he said with droll emphasis. Although he adds with a smile, he’d be more than willing to audition for the likes of Steven Spielberg or his other idolized director, Tim Burton. With hands raised aloft to the sunny Okanagan sky, he declares “I’d work for free to do a film with that guy!”

 

Quick hit:
What: An evening with actor Aaron Douglas & author/counsellor Chris Douglas. Explore the challenges of breaking into the industry & how to make the most of your human potential in all walks of life.
When & Where: Oct. 1 at 7 p.m., Mary Irwin Theatre, Rotary Centre for the Arts, Meet & Greet with book signing of Human: An Operator’s Manual to follow.
Tickets: Available at the box office, or selectyourtickets.com, 250-717-5304

 

---

WEBMISTRESS NOTE: The above interview with Aaron and Chris is to promote two events.

 

Aaron Douglas on Acting
Friday, October 1st, 2010 @ 1:00pm
Rotary Centre for the Arts – Mary Irwin Theatre – 421 Cawston Avenue, Kelowna, BC. Canada.
Purchase tickets ($20) HERE.

 

An Evening With Aaron Douglas and Chris Douglas
Friday, October 1st, 2010 @ 7:00pm – 9:30pm / Meet and Greet 9:30pm – 10:00pm.
Location is the same as above.
Purchase tickets ($32) HERE.

 

A how-to guide for life
By: Jennifer Smith
Date: August 17, 2010
Source: Kelowna Capital News

 

Yes, it is possible. You can graduate from high school in a small town like Kelowna and still see your name in lights.

Aaron Douglas, star of the new CTV drama The Bridge, walked out of KLO Secondary School – back when there was such a place – and into a life destined to make him a star.

Yet listening to his story this week as he sat at a coffee shop on Bernard Avenue, one would hardly describe his trajectory as a how-to guide to acting success.

“I had no idea I could do this as a career,” he said.

From doing Shakespeare in City Park to several years of laying floors and finally a role as a diet consultant in Vancouver, Douglas fully admits his penchant for drama had been shelved for the trappings of a responsible adulthood when an opportunity basically fell in his lap.

It wasn’t until a man he was doing a diet consultation with suggested he try out for Vancouver’s William Davis Centre, through the Vancouver Institute of Media Arts, and take some classes that Douglas even considered a career on camera. One thing led to another and he was soon offered a spot as one of the 10 to 12 actors the school takes in each year.

His wife at the time ascribed to a “you only get one chance at life” philosophy and Douglas said he decided to take the risk.

That decision, and the string of events leading up to it, actually do make him somewhat of a how-to role model for the self-guided success story, according to his brother.

Chris Douglas, a local mental health and addictions counsellor, figures his older brother’s life really is the perfect example of how to make successful life decisions and, as it turns out, he has just written a how-to guide for others to follow in a similar vein.

“I call it human for dummies,” the actor joked as he explained how the pair are planning a joint book launch and lecture at the Rotary Centre for the Arts this fall.

Aaron’s life will serve as a real life example of how to keep the ball rolling forward as Chris examines how some of our basic human instincts tend to get in the way as we cope with a 21st century.

Over the last 200,000 years our survival instincts have developed to respond to certain stimulus in prescribed ways, Chris said, but with the rapid development of the last couple of centuries, sometimes our responses no longer fit the bill.

To put it in context, he suggests looking at how we all cope with a particularly stressful day.

“Here I am responding to phone calls and emails in the same way I would be reacting to running from a tiger 400 years ago,” the younger Douglas brother said.

Human. An Operator’s Manual, as he has called the book, tries to explain the relationship between our reptilian, mammalian and executive brain functions and shares some of the scientific research psychology has produced to help us understand how to deal with challenges and the relationships in our lives.

“You don’t have to spend years in therapy to deal with an issue,” his mother, Arlene Elliott said.

She too works as a counsellor and says the research her son is talking about can make anything from coping with death to breaking a bad habit make more sense.

The pair share a practice, Elliott, Douglas and Associates, where their philosophy is explained in detail.

For his part, Aaron says, he is hoping to give a talk during the day for those hoping to break into the acting field as well. Watch the www.elliottdouglas.com website for details.

The evening talk will take place in conjunction with the book launch Friday, Oct. 1, in the Rotary Centre for the Arts. Tickets are already on sale at www.selectyourtickets.com.

 

---

WEBMISTRESS NOTE: The above article/interview with Aaron and Chris is to promote two events.

 

Aaron Douglas on Acting
Friday, October 1st, 2010 @ 1:00pm
Rotary Centre for the Arts – Mary Irwin Theatre – 421 Cawston Avenue, Kelowna, BC. Canada.
Purchase tickets ($20) HERE.

 

An Evening With Aaron Douglas and Chris Douglas
Friday, October 1st, 2010 @ 7:00pm – 9:30pm / Meet and Greet 9:30pm – 10:00pm.
Location is the same as above.
Purchase tickets ($32) HERE.