Today we’d like to introduce you to William Thompson.
Hi William, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I started out probably like a lot of other people, seeing someone on screen that we wanted to emulate. My people were Michael Keaton in Tim Burton’s Batman and Kevin Costner in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves directed by Kevin Reynolds. Those two individuals and characters seemed to jump off the screen for me and ignited my imagination. I remember reading magazines and watching any “behind the scenes” type shows. Mind you, this was way before the days of YouTube and Google, so every piece of information was a gold nugget. I did some theater in middle school and high school but nothing real serious and as I got older I kind of just figured it was a phase.
As I approached 40 years old, I decided to give it a real try. My daughter also wanted to act, so I figured I would get in the business and find all the honest, trustworthy people so that she would have good connections when she started. Well, as kids often do, she changed her mind and I was already knee deep into everything. I started doing local theater and student films just as every other actor does to gain experience. After two years of scouring Actors Access and Casting Networks, I was finally able to put together enough material to submit to agencies. In February of 2021, I was signed with East Coast Talent Agency and I believe it is a perfect fit. I love my agent, Barbara Garvey, and my agency mates.
In addition to acting, I am also a high school welding teacher at Greene County high school in Greensboro, Georgia in the Greene College & Career Academy. I find teaching very fulfilling and showing kids a tangible skill that can change the trajectory of their lives is very important to me. To see a student achieve that “a ha” moment when everything comes together is great. My subject area falls into the CTAE (Career Technical Education) realm, these are the technical skills that we often see in the skylines of big cities like Atlanta but very seldom hear about. I want to be an advocate for the “hands on skills” and the craftspeople and teachers in our schools that work hard everyday to create a skilled workforce.
It is my hope that I can use my platform as an actor to promote Career Technical Education and show my students that they can be and do anything they set out to achieve.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I would say that the road is as smooth as we make it. There are definitely struggles along the way but we should look at them as an opportunity to grow. I’m reading Chasing Failure: How Falling Short Sets You Up For Success by Ryan Leak. In it Ryan describes how so often we chase success when we should be chasing failure. Something that every person we look up to has at one time or another failed at something, and it is their ability to take that failure and use it as a time to learn, grow, and come back stronger. Those failures, that adversity, and their ability to overcome it made them a success in the end. Instead of chasing an instant success, we should be chasing opportunities that will possibly expose a shortcoming so that we can grow as an individual. Seek out the long-term success, not the quick win.
With all that said, yes, I have had struggles of self-doubt. Things like “I’m too old” or “Who do I think I am?” Also, trying to juggle everything that comes with having a family and a full-time job as an educator. I am very lucky, I have a wonderful loving wife and amazing daughter and work for an outstanding school system that fosters my desire to express my creativity.
I believe the key to it is this, time is going to pass either way. We can either spend it wishing we had tried (fill in the blank) or we can go out there and grab it by the horns.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am most proud of the fact that I am showing my students that they can do more than one thing with their lives, that they don’t have to settle for one career or one path to travel. I tell them about my auditions, if possible and when I can, I tell them about my time on set. They think it’s cool that their teacher is “on TV”. If I am in a local theater production, sometimes my students will come and watch. The last production was CLUE, I was professor Plum. Some of my students came and watched and the next day they came into class and were calling me Professor Plum. It was cool because they got to see me in a different setting than the classroom, and they got to see that I am more than “just a welding teacher”. I think this helps in building lasting relationships with my students.
I believe having a technical skillsets me apart from other people. When the blue-collar auditions come along, I can truthfully say that I am “blue-collar”. I have spent more years in the industrial construction and field of teaching than I have in acting, so I feel I am comfortable in that skin.
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
Growing up, I was an extremely shy kid. I can remember once in middle school, being dropped off at a church lock-in by my parents one Friday night. I was scared to death because I only knew a couple of kids there from my baseball team, and they hadn’t arrived yet. So I was there with a bunch of people I didn’t know. Many of those same kids that night ended up becoming lifelong friends.
Once I got into high school, I was a bit more outgoing, I ran track and cross country. I even played football my junior year, I was the smallest kid on the team, I believe my helmet and shoulder pads weighed more than I did.
I enjoyed watching football and hockey. We would play football in the front yard of our houses and in the street. We would also go down to the tennis courts and play roller hockey. I grew up in a small town where everyone knew everyone. In fact, there is only one traffic light in the whole county. On the weekends, it was easy to find us ganged up at a friend’s house doing all kinds of nonsense. Mainly making mixtapes, drinking Mountain Dew, and eating Pop-Tarts and Reese’s Nutrageous candy bars.
Contact Info:
- Email: bookwilliamthompson@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thewilliamthompson/
