Emryhs Cooper, Actor/Filmmaker: I didn't really have a secure place to live.
I lived in about eight different homes and at one point I actually became homeless and I lived in my
car off Mulholland. So that was really a lot and I was quite proud, so I didn't want to tell anyone.
Film Courage: Skipping forward to 2008, why were you confident that you could
become an actor, come to Los Angeles, and be in this crazy town full of crazy people?
Emryhs: I'm quite a fearless kind of person and I always just
gamble on myself I guess. I left home when I was 16 to pursue the arts. I left England
to come to LA at 23. I watched a documentary about Hollywood in the studio system in the 40's when I
was about 13 years old and I just thought it looked really magical (storytelling). I had
quite a rough upbringing being bullied and just a lot of kind of it was hard you know. I think I
had this life outside of the dark situation in movies that was my escape and I just kind of
thought of Hollywood as just a magical land and it really is. I mean there's obviously all the
stereotypes about LA exist but I just wanted to experience it and I've never been to America.
I saved up money from my last musical theater job and got on the plane. I actually forgot my wallet
which was so stupid so I arrived in LA with no wallet and my phone didn't work and this lady
who I actually never met came to pick me up and I didn't have a phone it was a bit of a nightmare
so it was a bit of a rocky start let's say but I'm kind of grateful for all the challenges because it
made me have perseverance and staying power and it makes me appreciate where I am now having a happy
home life and having a good circle of friends I had to start from scratch when I was 23 and that
was kind of you know it was challenging but it was good to push myself out of the comfort zone
did you have people pulling you back home friends family life situations when I first moved to la I
was quite an in-demand dancer that sounds really arrogant but I was doing a lot of work and I was
getting offers of jobs still back in the UK so it was hard I was pounding the pavements here trying
my best to get work and I was getting offered work back home so there was a bit of a push and pull
because I did have an agent and manager here that would getting me opportunities but I was getting
real money offers so I did kind of go back and forth a little bit and then after a while they
said you know you can't you can't really be doing that if you want to be taken seriously as an actor
you can't be going back and doing these dance jobs that aren't really progressing your career where
we want to take you so I kind of had to make a choice around 27 to really in a way you
know quit dancing and just take acting full time what is the typical length of a dancer's career
it really depends on the style of dancing I mean ballet's a lot younger
it could be 35 hip-hop and ballroom and stuff there's a bit more longevity but then you can
go into choreography or teaching but being a professional dancer the shelf life is not long
and I was pretty lucky from 19 to you know 27-28 I did a tremendous amount of fantastic jobs and
I got to see the world I got to work with pop stars I got to do musicals musical movies and I
just had a really great time but I kind of ticked a lot of my dreams off and then my dreams changed
so then I wanted to be more creative behind the scenes or direct or you know there was just a lot
of other things that I was interested in I'm very inquisitive by nature so and does it have a does
that have its own dark side to it or or it's only positive my inquisitive side definitely has a dark
side which I think is okay because we have a light and dark side and I've embraced both and it makes
me a deeper performer a deeper person it's given me a deeper well to pull from as an actor yeah no
I think that being lonely in LA when I moved out here and there was some negative influences that
I had to explore so I had to work out my demons you know I came here my manager told me I had
to be straight I was told you know it would lose me roles being gay and I had to kind of create a
facade and a persona and curate a lifestyle that was pretty challenging because I had to kind of
play a role in my real life and I think authenticity is is peace is happiness
and for about three or four or even five years it was just a lot to keep up and I think that that
led me to a more destructive kind of personal life because I was kind of feeling kind of you know
not great in who I was when your team and people around you don't celebrate you and it's a kind of
old it's not necessarily their fault it's the old Hollywood mindset a lot has changed in the last 10
years so don't have any bad blood funny enough the people that told me I couldn't be gay were gay oh
interesting yeah so yeah I was it was a challenge I had some luckily I had therapy and I had a good
support system of friends and it got me through those harder times that's what I was wondering is
is now it seems like that wouldn't be the case but maybe I'm wrong it seems much more acceptable I
think it is and I think there's it's so much more accepted but you know there's still people losing
roles because they're gay Matt lost out to being Superman, he lost out to 50 Shades of Grey and I
think it happens all the time I think there's a lot of actors that are still in the closet
because they might lose out on those major roles you know living in LA we're in a bit of a bubble
but I think we've got to be grateful for the progress that has happened and keep celebrating
the people that are brave to come out and be with their authentic self it's a scary thing
I mean not all actors want people to know their personal life I'm a very private person and it's
quite hard for me to talk about that but I also think that if I can share my personal experience
and inspire others to do the same even if theirs is different then that's my goal to really inspire
sure and I know I you know I'm not so much up on the tabloids but I know the British tabloids can
be quite invasive in terms of when someone hits a certain level and just it seems like there's
just all bets are off and it's it's super destructive so I could see why somebody would
want to keep their personalized to themselves for whatever reason just to just to preserve
their own life you know yeah I also think as an actor you want people to not I don't think it's
that interesting to know too much about the actor because I want to believe them in that role
and I think sometimes if you could become too well known as your personality I mean
look at Jennifer Aniston she's a fantastic actress but so many people know her so well
through her personal life they can be distracting actually I think luckily I think she's now
probably become more private intentionally but when you're so well known for your
your personal life it can it can be hard to forget that when you're watching them on screen
sure I think well I can only speak for myself I think when you're younger maybe you're more
open to people knowing more about you and then as time goes on there is a destructive element
that can come to play you did a movie called Trophy Boy and I know I'm skipping ahead but
it sounds like there's some similarities in that in that you know there's a facade that you want
the world to see but there's a destructiveness in trying to keep that up yeah I think that my
I don't say gif but my one of the themes as a writer director is exploring the onion of
taking off the mask and revealing one's true self because that's a journey I've explored many times
and I'm very close that as I just said so it's something that I feel I can share because I've
lived it you know truth is stranger than fiction so I felt compelled seeing the destructive side
of social media the mental health how it's affected people's mental health I wanted to
kind of showcase the dangers of it in a slightly comedic but heartfelt way and I was really proud
that the film I was very nervous making the film because I used a lot of my own social media and I
used certain elements of myself and some people actually thought I was Trophy Boy but I was
okay with that you know whatever like as long as you're enjoying the work then I don't really care
but I intentionally made it a little bit provocative a little salacious
as you know you wanted to get clicks you wanted to get talked about but I wanted
most of all to have substance and I wanted it to be relatable a lot of people that watched
Trophy Boy said they either were guilty of some of that or they knew people like that and Trophy Boy
was a proof of concept for a television series we're now working on so we're hopefully going
to explore some of these things in a deeper way on a series so yeah I'm excited about it
yeah I’d like to see it why were the first two years in Los Angeles difficult for you
I didn't really have a secure place to live I lived in about eight different homes and at one
point I actually became homeless and I lived off my car in my car of Mulholland so that was really
a lot and I i was quite proud so I didn't want to tell anyone sometimes that kind of
yeah it was really just lonely a lot of the time a lot of rejection and I had this steady three or
four years of working consistently in London which I kind of gave up for this dream and
you know it was it was a bit of a shock but at the same time it was exciting it was
you know I believe la is a blank canvas and it's what you make of it and even though it was tough I
kind of enjoyed the fact I was pursuing something I think it's great to have purpose and go for your
dream and I just had a gut instinct that I just had to stick it out and gradually things got
better so when you would have auditions or whatnot you would have a cell phone they could leave
a message it wasn't I mean in this day and age you don't need an answering machine you can have
a cell phone again so when I first moved to la I had the blue book so we I mean it was like kind of
nerve-wracking I had just driving around we didn't have google maps on our phones you know I didn't
have the internet on my phone I think I might have done I don't know but we didn't you know I had a
map map so I was like so freaked out by driving on the freeways I was always late for auditions
but yeah I know it was it was things have really evolved now everything's done by
tape a lot of the time it's become a lot easier with google maps I remember just
getting freaked out getting lost a lot of the time like the first year was just navigating
just driving around la was even challenging for me sure sure there's you know like when
the light turns red at an intersection and you're making a left I didn't realize that
there was this like unspoken rule that those three cars could actually make that left you think okay
it's green for me I can go right so yeah there's a lot of things that take use to you know sort of
navigating when did you get your first place after you lived in your car briefly what was the first
place that you got after that so I got I booked a couple of commercials I started making some money
and I got a place on Sunset and Hayworth and I got my own apartment which was just amazing
and then they got me by saying was the first three months rent free and then you know and I was a bit
I was a hopeless optimist because I thought that I could survive in that and I remember
then like six months in the rent was really high but I made it work and then I moved to and then I
started getting some more jobs here and there the commercials really kept me going kept me afloat
and then then I started getting more tv roles and I managed to get a place on laurel canyon
where I lived for six years I had six magical years in laurel canyon that's when I really feel
like I started to really feel grounded in LA and you're in a magical place where you know there's a
history yeah did that help at all where you felt like I've arrived or you felt like I'm one step
from having to leave here I felt like I’d arrived oh nice I really did I think there was something
I felt really at home in Laurel Canyon there's a magical energy there it's a very artistic kind
of community of people and I finally I actually started mixing with other producers and I wasn't
just acting I was starting to kind of go into like behind the scenes development stuff and that kind
of gave me a bit more control and power I felt I just wasn't at the mercy of producers and casting
directors I was actually starting to create some opportunities for myself and that really gave me
some encouragement that you know it wasn't I could I could do more than I thought I could and at any
point once arriving at laurel canyon did you feel any pull to go home did anyone try to ask you back
no I've never there were times I was homesick a little bit but I’ve always kind of managed to go
back a couple of times a year to the UK and my mum came out here my sister has come out here
multiple times but I've never been I've never questioned even though there's been times that
have been tough like I actually broke my neck my I had a minor fracture to my neck in 2016 and
for six months I couldn't move my neck I couldn't work out I could barely drive even though that was
going on I never really questioned my my journey I kind of just stuck it out as hard as it was.
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