Do What You Love, Love What You Do - Paul Greene (Canadian Actor)

The only way to excel at anything is to fully immerse yourself in the culture. Confidence just comes from practice and being prepared and doing something over and over and over again.

1. Tell us about your background and journey.

I’m Norwegian and Dutch...and my background is everything that’s behind me in the past...that is now my “background." Now with that joke in the “background”...

I’m from Canada, a very small farming community between Calgary and Edmonton. I grew up wanting to be a professional athlete. I was on a volleyball scholarship at Red Deer College when a modeling agent, Kelly Streit, found me and sent me off to Toronto, and then quickly, to Europe.

After a decade of modeling, when I was in Miami, I met an acting agent from New York, and that brought me to New York City in 1995, where I studied acting with some of the greats. Eventually, in 2003, after my son was born, I made my way to Los Angeles. I’ve been in Los Angeles for the last 16 years with a single focus on acting.

2. Did you ever think or dream of being an actor?

Funny you mention the word dream because it actually is a dream that got me started. I used to wake up on the farm from a dream that I was on set with Jean-Claude Van Damme fighting in a martial arts movie and that dream was recurring.

It didn’t take me too long to put myself in acting school at the age of 16 in Edmonton. I had done some school plays, and church plays.

I saw myself as an athlete, not as a thespian, I had a hard time relating to the artsy types in high school. They all hung out at the door of the school where there was smoking and heavy metal T-shirts

3. How can one approach their career and have the confidence and belief to become an actor?

The easiest way to get started with acting is just to get started, get in an acting class and see if you like it, subscribe to YouTube channels that talk about acting, watch movies with a perspective of actually what goes into making them, subscribe to podcasts, and Instagram accounts that are all about acting.

The only way to excel at anything is to fully immerse yourself in the culture. And then get ready for a truckload of rejection, I’ve had 640 auditions and had 600 no’s; those 40 yes’s make up my career.

Then become an expert at taking nothing personally and handling rejection like a champ.

Confidence just comes from practice and being prepared and doing something over and over and over again. And then trusting your inner guidance system over the opinion of others.

4. If not this, what would you be doing?

I would certainly be a professional musician, singer/songwriter touring, promoting my music and singing to promote my record. I love music; I love singing.

My ultimate dream is to be on a sitcom where I can be close to family in Los Angeles, and my character plays music...that would be kind of a dream situation., Making people laugh, being close to family, and singing all together. So I’m working on that

5. What is your mantra of success?

Be willing to fail, and fail, and keep failing and then look at these failures not as a failure but as steps of success. And success is also waking up in the morning with a smile on your face and gratitude in your heart. If you’re doing what you love… You are “successful."

6. Which is your favorite book and why?

"As A Man Thinketh" by James Allan is one of my favorite little books.

Also "The Game of Life and How To Play It" by Florence Scovil Shin.

"The Richest Man in Babylon" is the best financial book ever written.… You did ask for three right?

If I had a billboard that I could have something displayed It would say

“Do what you love: love what you do.”

Instagram ID - @paulgreeneofficial