Episode 16: Ato Essandoh
The Secret to Everything with Ato Essandoh
It may sometimes feel that in order to 'make it' in a certain field, we have to get very serious and lose some of the fun along the way. Our guest on the show today, is here to remind us why play and maintaining a novice's wonder and innocence, are some of the most important parts of creativity and craft. Ato Essandoh is someone who has carved out an exciting and varied life in creative spaces; working primarily as an actor, Ato has not allowed a successful and demanding career to withhold him from pursuing passion projects and his own curiosity. In today's chat he explains how he allows space to explore things that light him up, and the lessons he has taken from some of the best creative minds about play. He also talks about the value of letting go, and why collaboration is the essence of what he does. This inspiring conversation had too much to be contained in just one episode, and we promise we will have Ato back for a follow-up chat, exploring more of his amazing mind. For now, dive in with us and hear what our guest had to say!
Key Points From This Episode:
• The array of work that Ato does and how he accidentally fell in love with acting!
• Ato's motivations for creativity and what passion projects add to his life.
• Lessons in framing and reveals that Ato has learned along the way.
• Finding playfulness with professionals; Ato's perspectives on the best in the business.
• How generosity and togetherness figure into Ato's artistic philosophy.
• The first steps that Ato takes when it comes to instilling play in a scene.
• Ato's thoughts on pursuing ideas and why practice is so important to this.
• The influence of Ato's family on his mission statement; how he turned this into a life of creativity.
• Designing a life based on what you truly love and want to try!
• The long path of being a novice and the time it so often takes to experience success that is seen.
Tweetables:
“It might not be a movie, it might turn into a song, it might turn into a book, it might turn into anything but it’s like, it’s like we’re playing in the sandbox.” — @AtoEssandoh [0:05:09]
“There’s something lovely and beautiful about people that you love and trust that are on their front foot and want to just play.” — @AtoEssandoh [0:06:31]
“You can’t act in a vacuum and you have to play with people who are willing to play.” — @AtoEssandoh [0:14:39]
“If one person isn’t being generous then both people or all the people, have to fail.” — @AtoEssandoh [0:15:18]
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
The fine folks over at Section recently interviewed me about some common mistakes I’m seeing folks make when they use AI. One of the biggest ones? The tendency to expect too little, and get just that.