What sparked you to create The Actors Workshop Spain?

I grew up in a small, isolated town on the Belgian Coast. One had to drive 30 km to encounter a movie theater. Imagine, under these circumstances, I was determined to become an actor at a very young age. Bad start if you ask me. If only I’d had a school like The Actors Workshop in my vicinity! So, when I landed in Barcelona my mission was clear. When I see young people, 17- or 18-years old inquiring about how to join the school, my face still lights up. Mission completed.

Why is 2024 an important year for The Actors Workshop?

Because we are celebrating 20 years of its existence!

I have put in 20 years of arduous work to get an acting school on its feet. I created the workshop in 2004 to give actors a chance to work on a weekly basis. The idea was to set up a quality school that was accessible to everyone based on the training I had in Los Angeles. I have been fortunate to have had amazing mentors like Milton Katselas, Aaron Speiser, Stuart Rogers and Ivana Chubbuck, all based in LA.

You don’t need to pay 60.000 euros a year tuition fee. I am the proof that you can have an acting career with this type of schooling. You need commitment and dedication, not tons of money.

Joining an acting class has multiple advantages. Not only do you get hands-on acting training, but you surround yourself with people who have the same interests. I got my first agent, first professional job through connections I made in acting class.  Often you hear that actor X and actor Y studied together and they both are working actors. Well, great actors (students) inspire others to work harder, pushing each other to be better.

What is the difference between The Actors Workshop and other acting schools?

Barcelona offers plenty of schools in Spanish and Catalan. The Actors Workshop is the first and still one of the only schools that offers professional acting classes in English in Barcelona and Spain. Our alumni are very international, people travel from all corners of the world to study here.

We offer 3 different levels, beginners, intermediate and advanced. Every month we also have a 3-day intensive Chubbuck technique workshop.

Check out our website for more details.

What is your most important mission as a teacher?

It has always been one of my personal goals to be an actor who teaches. I regard myself to be first an actor then a teacher. I have worked as an actor on more than 60 film and tv productions alongside legends and Oscars winning performers. I teach from experience what actors need to know, what they need to develop and what they can apply in the work.  I have experienced firsthand classes that teach esoteric stuff that has nothing to do with acting.  Classes that are merely created to keep students busy, so they have the impression of being in a full-time acting program.  Instead, I tell my students to read and see plays, read scripts, visit museums, watch movies etc… I believe this to be more productive.

Nowadays young people prioritize marketing for actors, acting for camera, yoga for actors and/or pay money to be seen by casting directors instead of focusing first on studying to become an actor.  Few people really want to dedicate the necessary time to develop their skills. Acting is an art and when it is well done it looks easy. So easy people believe they all can do it over night.  You see it everywhere, in 3 months you can be a yoga teacher, a life coach, an acting teacher and all that on-line! Mediocrity and dilettantish efforts are the new fashion!

I battle against it daily!

What is The Actors Workshop doing to celebrate 20 years of its creation?

I just bought the rights to the play “The Blue Room” by David Hare. All cast members are advanced students of The Actors Workshop Spain.

“The Blue Room is a brilliant meditation on men and women, sex and social class, actors, and the theater. With deft insight about the gap between the sexes, it takes the treacherous Freudian subject of projection and desire and reinvents it in a bittersweet landscape that is both eternal and completely up to date.”

Th Actors Workshop Company will present THE BLUE ROOM starting 4^th April till 20^th April, every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at 20h. Tickets can be purchased via Eventbrite.

The event takes place at The Actors Workshop Studio.