Beginners Call

As my first acting teacher said: “You cannot teach someone to act, but they can learn”.

Briefly, that’s what I’ve been doing my whole life. And if we are talking about the acting profession (and I believe any other creative profession) – learning has a beginning, but no end. I never feel like I know enough, I never feel that I have reached a level where I can stop developing. And the great thing is, that even when I develop as a person, I develop as an actor. Because I am my own instrument in a way. In the same way that a pianist has a piano, a painter has his painting equipment… actors have themselves.

And that’s both the good and the bad part.

Act 1

I learned a lot. In university, I, like most of my fellow students, were taught Stanislavsky and Chekhov’s methodologies. And I always wondered: why does the world have so many acting techniques, yet we are limiting ourselves with these two? I mean, we all aim for the same result, but still.

I worked a lot. I starred in films and TV series; I did theatre: physical and improvisational, and I worked in touring theatre for about four years. And then Covid hit and spoiled everything. If only I had known that those were the good times, right? All of us had quite a big pause in our creative work and I definitely felt like I wasn’t in my best acting shape. And then I saw that Ivanna Chubbuck’s Studio had opened in Kyiv, so I headed to learn there. The best part was that my teacher there had studied the Meisner technique, so we talked her into teaching it to us.

I felt like I was learning to walk again. I got to discover the simplest yet hardest things – following my impulses and not correcting them. It was like coming back to my real self. Not filtered and shaped by society. I felt free.

Intermission

And then the war started. I was so afraid that everything was over and that I might never have a chance to do what I love again. But even then, almost unconsciously, part of me analyzed everything that was going on with me and those around me, so that I could put it into my scripts or my acting roles.

Act 2

It’s different now. I work at two non-creative jobs, sometimes I write at night and I feel such a terrifying lack of acting. It’s almost unbearable. I do realize that I’m lucky, because I have actual jobs and I earn money to live on. But, sadly, it does not fulfill me. I don’t feel whole. So I started to search for a suitable place to practice. I didn’t care about fancy names or star coaches. I wanted to develop, I wanted to find a safe place, a real place, where I could make mistakes and explore myself, I wanted to feel alive. And more – to be alive while acting.

At one of the networking events I attended, I overheard people discussing The Impulse Company. Of course, I googled them as soon as I heard the name and it hit me: this was exactly what I needed. Meisner! The perfect path to my true self. The perfect path to feeling alive again. 

After another grey and tiring day at work, I was so desperate that I wrote a huge letter to The Impulse Company and sent it straight away. I thought: I will dare to do this. I will take every chance I can, because I cannot exist without creating. Yet still, I expected nothing.

So imagine my excitement when I got an invitation for a Zoom call from those beautiful Impulse people and the invitation to start learning in January! The thought of coming back to acting keeps me going.

Now I repeat to myself:

Dare, always dare.

How I Began.

I had always had my head in the clouds. Getting lost in the woods in search of real elves? Easy. Talking to imaginary friends more than to real people? You got it. Pretending to be my twin sister (with a very strange anime name and a horrible temper I must say) and making other people believe I was her? Duh! I’m really proud of that one: I lasted for more than two weeks. Until my friends asked both of us, my twin and me, to go out and play. I got totally busted, but that didn’t stop me from making up other stories. 

I had my head in the clouds. I still do. And sadly, I had a lot of reasons not to get out of there into the strange incomprehensible world that surrounded me. Everything in reality seemed to knock me off my feet. I feel like I had to constantly fight for the right to be myself: I had never fit anywhere. 

School? I hated it. I was curvy, strange, with a sharp birdy nose, always dreaming about something and I was bullied for… Everything I was and others weren’t. To run away, I dived into my stories, worlds and characters even more: life is so much better, when you add a little fantasy to it. I even simulated I was ill not to go there. Once my illness-acting was so good that my mom took me to the hospital and they left me there for some kind of treatment. I was so freaked out by the needles and so angry at myself for my cowardness, that this was the turning point: when I got back to school I started fighting off. I must admit I got pretty good at it. I hoped that life after school would get easier. Oh how I wish that was true.

Drama School Drama. 

I didn’t really fit in at my first acting university either. I did play a lot of main roles because I was one of the hardest workers, but I was constantly reminded not to believe in my very bright future because I wasn’t pretty enough. On the top of that, I was the only alto at the singing classes and had a strange attraction to Louis Armstrong songs. My teacher was outraged because a girl can’t have a voice like that. «Girls have to be sopranos.» 

I had so many doubts in myself… Am I enough? Am I allowed to be myself? Do I have to fit? Why? 

Even the thought of giving up my dream is unbearable to me. But once I found myself on my way there, I was so tired of fighting that I thought: “I’m going to try one last time. If it doesn’t work, I’m done”. 

So I went to some random event (don’t ask me how I got there) and sang my heart out. One man asked me if he could come and listen more. I said I don’t sing because my voice doesn’t fit. And then he said the words I still repeat to myself: “God gave you a talent. You have no right not to use it or doubt it.” I am not the most believing person, but I feel like he had a point.

Home. And War. 

Because every time I was on stage I had this feeling: I am home. I can be whoever I want and even myself and I will be accepted. So I had to work harder. And I made it to the theater stage and film sets no matter what I’ve been told. Because I knew where I was going. 

And then the war started. When I literally had to fight for myself. When everything I achieved didn’t count anymore.

It’s different now. I’m standing in front of a huge and terrifying unknown in a city where no one knows me. But this time I know: I am enough. 

And so are you.

Meet Elena Sophya.

Sometimes it is in the darkest times that we find light and our strongest will to live. Sounds tricky, right? This is how I found myself here, in London. 

My name is Elena Sophya, I am a Ukrainian actor and scriptwriter who recently moved to the UK because of the war in my country. I remember being a 10-year-old child and writing myself letters from the future me, saying everything will be alright, I will be a famous actor and author, living in London and having a happy life doing what I love.

I told myself that no matter how hard it is, I have to carry on pursuing my dream. That I can never give up.

I remember proudly walking to my acting classes at university with an enormous golden bag with  “LONDON” in huge letters on it. I bet you could see me a mile away. 

So I always had this feeling – I have to be here. And now I am. But I never thought the price would be so unbearably big and horrifying. Even so, I have never felt the will to live so strongly and I have never wanted to do what I love as much as I do now. 

Saying that it is hard moving to another country because of the war in your homeland and starting your whole life from scratch is saying nothing. It’s constant burnout, doing more than you could imagine you are capable of, pushing yourself beyond your limits, drowning in an ocean of horrifying news, non-stop animal fear for your loved ones at home and so very much trying to hold yourself together. 

But also, it’s about being happy to be alive, that you have been given the biggest gift to just be. I am going to share my story with you and tell you about my three dreams: life before the war, the war, and my life in London. I speak of them as dreams because it’s hard to understand whether any of these are real. All I know for sure is that my will to live and to create is. 

And I hope that by sharing my story with you I will gently remind both you and myself that we must never give up on life. Because it is the most incredible gift we can ever be given.