21/52 Jonathan Cherry

21/52 Jonathan Cherry

“I was in university, I was at Western…It was a bunch of rich kids knowing that they’d either take over their parents business, or be lawyers or businessmen.. And I just had no interest. I liked people, movies, basketball, girls..I got a little depressed, I was like, what the fuck am I going to do, this isn’t me, I know I can’t do any of these things. And then I think Titanic was coming out on video..and there was a commercial.

I’d seen the movie and I loved it, you know it’s this epic thing… And I’m looking at this boat, and it’s tipping, and there’s this shot of this huge multi million dollar boat, and they’ve got this skinny blonde kid in front of the camera and I just had an epiphany..they set up all of this crazy shit, so that the camera can get images of this guys face…How do you get to there? And I was like, well maybe I’m not the magical person who can be THAT guy, but I was like, I would be really proud if I hammered a nail into that boat. In reality I wanted to be the one in front of that camera…but I was like there’s something here, where I feel like I could do that. Either way I want to be on that set, and I’d be proud if I was apart of that thing. I was like…is it ok to have a love for movies and television? I decided at that moment..obviously I want to be an actor…

I go home to my parents for Christmas and I had to tell them, I’m going to drop out to become an actor. My mom was like follow your dream, but skeptical y’know jewish parents and my dad was like “bullshit, this is just another excuse for you to not pick up a book”. So they said ok, do what you’ve got to do but you’ve got to figure it out for yourself.

So I come back to London and my best friend tells me he wants to go for dinner, and I’m like “ya I’ve gotta talk to you too”. So we get to dinner and I said to him “I’m dropping out dude, I want to go become an actor, and I already sent an application to Vancouver film school” he goes “…dude I was going to tell you the exact same thing.”

That fall him and I were driving out together to Vancouver to go become actors.”