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In Their Own Words: Lauren Schacher '03
Editor's Note: Athens Academy alumna Lauren Schacher '03 was recently featured in the new "In Their Own Words" section in the spring issue of Accent. Due to space limitations, we were unable to print Ms. Schacher's article in its entirety, so we are pleased to make it available here. Special thanks to Ms. Schacher for participating in this wonderful spotlight feature!
One of my clearest memories from my childhood is knocking on my neighbors’ doors, inviting them to watch me perform a play I’d written later that day at the center of our cul de sac. I was about 7 and living in Seattle, where we lived until I was 13. We set up a little theatre in the round with folding chairs. My neighbors did their due diligence to support the eccentric kid down the street and showed up; I dressed and made up my friends, and paraded us out into the street. The play was a mash-up of fairy-tales—one princess and many suitors—for which I had enlisted all my girlfriends to play princes to my princess. Despite the fact that I was a painfully shy kid, performing was my greatest pleasure even then. Fear went out the door when I was on stage. I felt victorious. I never wanted that feeling to go away and I still don’t. Thankfully, my parents encouraged me, letting me audition for plays and theatre companies even then. My cinephile father furthered my passion by showing me the films of his generation, thus curating my favorite actor list to the likes of Audrey Hepburn and Gene Kelly. When I arrived at Athens Academy in 8th grade, you can imagine that meeting Lorraine Thompson was heaven. She’s still one of the greatest acting teachers I’ve ever had. Together we founded the Athens Academy Drama Club (then The Thespian Society) and the rest is history.
One of my clearest memories from my childhood is knocking on my neighbors’ doors, inviting them to watch me perform a play I’d written later that day at the center of our cul de sac. I was about 7 and living in Seattle, where we lived until I was 13. We set up a little theatre in the round with folding chairs. My neighbors did their due diligence to support the eccentric kid down the street and showed up; I dressed and made up my friends, and paraded us out into the street. The play was a mash-up of fairy-tales—one princess and many suitors—for which I had enlisted all my girlfriends to play princes to my princess. Despite the fact that I was a painfully shy kid, performing was my greatest pleasure even then. Fear went out the door when I was on stage. I felt victorious. I never wanted that feeling to go away and I still don’t. Thankfully, my parents encouraged me, letting me audition for plays and theatre companies even then. My cinephile father furthered my passion by showing me the films of his generation, thus curating my favorite actor list to the likes of Audrey Hepburn and Gene Kelly. When I arrived at Athens Academy in 8th grade, you can imagine that meeting Lorraine Thompson was heaven. She’s still one of the greatest acting teachers I’ve ever had. Together we founded the Athens Academy Drama Club (then The Thespian Society) and the rest is history.
So you might be surprised to find out that when I left high school, I pursued a degree in Biochemistry from McGill. Pre-med. Why? Because as much as I loved theatre and movies, that love was no match for my fear of failure, and there’s no career more replete with failure than acting. For three years, I pretended I was OK with that choice, working myself to the bone to maintain good grades while performing nightly in local productions and independent films. I probably slept about 4-5 hours a night. It was too much. After a long talk with my dad and the encouragement of another wonderful acting coach, the late Jacqueline McClintock, I got over my fear. I graduated early and finally made the decision I should have made three years prior: I moved to NYC to study acting. So now, where are we? I currently live in Los Angeles. I am a union film and stage actor. I’ve performed on screen opposite people like Jeffrey Tambor, Lindsay Lohan and very briefly, Mr. Al Pacino, I’ve sung and danced at Lincoln Center, and performed in numerous off-Broadway shows. As anyone in this industry will tell you, it’s a journey, not a sprint. It takes the average creative about 20 years to have a fully-fledged career in this industry, so patience is our biggest virtue – it’s also the thing you’ll hear people gripe about the most, aside from maybe reboots. I’m quite proud of the things I’ve accomplished. I do wonder, however, what might’ve happened if I’d known one, that acting wasn’t the only option and two, that women were fighting for their place out here. Perhaps I would’ve jumped in sooner.
There are 101 different jobs out here in LA. Acting is but one of them. Actors have a very clear role: they add LIFE; but they are not the end-all-be-all of Hollywood. Acting is also the only creative facet of filmmaking that requires someone else to hire you every single time. Sure, writers, directors, grips, producers, etc all get hired, but only actors require all other pieces to be in place for them to even get a shot at the job. It’s also the job for which the most people are applying and for which “qualifications” are the most subjective. There are the lucky few who land big jobs early on—and for them the burden becomes to maintain—but for the majority, it’s a long road where persistence is key.
As a kid, it really seemed to me that the only role for women in Hollywood was starring in films and television. It’s not that I didn’t think women could do anything else, it’s that I didn’t see them doing anything else. And as naïve as this may sound to you, I wasn’t wrong. Women make up about 9% of directors, 15% of writers, only slightly higher of producers, and even as actors only 23% of films have a female protagonist… and of those films, she’s usually the only female character. If you were to ask the average person who their favorite directors are – and if they know them, writers – 99/100 times, they will give you a list of predominately white males. This is quite intimidating as a young woman or minority going into the industry. Where are the people like me? So when getting acting work doesn’t turn out to be as easy as you thought it would be (and it didn’t), what are you supposed to do? Go back to school? Lose weight? Gain weight? Change your hair color? Change your “type”? (All real suggestions people make out here when you’re struggling.) Shonda Rhimes wasn’t a household name until recently and is still rare in terms of her gender and race. It was only 5 years ago that Kathryn Bigelow won an Oscar for directing (and she’s still the only woman to do so). While attending Athens Academy, there were at least two teachers, maybe three who allowed me to turn in films I’d made with classmates rather than the standard assignment. I don’t remember the original assignments well, but I sure do remember those films. I still have them. Another teacher, Mrs. Leary, after catching a comma splice in my term paper, challenged me to write a play instead. Mrs. Leary, if you are reading, you have no idea what an impact that made on me.
About two years ago, annoyed that my agents were sending me out for awful roles and even more dismayed by the plethora of stereotypical, often sexist, roles for women, I wrote my first film. I was terrified to do it and didn’t anticipate showing it to anyone, but somehow the more I wrote, the stronger I felt. I didn’t know many women who were writers at the time, but I had some very encouraging male friends who pushed me to take a writing class. In that class, I heard a story about a woman who’d come there, an actor, who wrote a film …a film that got made. Confidence boost. Around that time, I saw Another Earth—written by and starring a woman named Brit Marling, whose career then skyrocketed. Another confidence boost. I wrote as quickly and as adeptly as I could, taking notes from everyone. I met more writers. And while I was terrified to show it to anyone, I did. That film won a screenwriting fellowship that year. A mere three months later, after having pushed my second film as hard as I knew how, the second feature was optioned by a production company and sent into development. I found writing because I wasn’t getting what I wanted out of just acting. Because while I didn’t let the no’s get me down, I did listen. Because I wanted a career in this industry no matter what. But I gotta tell you, finding out that there were women who’d done it before me was a huge boost. I started seeking out other writers, women who’d been writing for far longer than I had. I’m now a part of a huge community of women in film. We inspire each other and push each other because we all have a common goal: the numbers of women in this business are embarrassing and it’s up to us to change that. The more of us who work, the better it is for all of us. I now know women DPs, women producers, story editors, women who run networks and women who cast your favorite films, women directors and a TON of women writers. LA is not the seedy, narcissistic land it’s painted to be. It’s about community. I see women doing all the jobs; there just aren’t enough. Had I known these women were out there, I often wonder if I would have pushed myself harder as a kid. Maybe I would have started writing earlier or have been less shy about taking other roles aside from just acting. I recently met a 15-year-old girl who told me that she wanted to act, direct and write. She mentioned that everyone in her life was telling her to “pick one” but that she really couldn’t imagine life without the other two. But as she had no example to show them, no woman she could name who was doing all those things, she felt she didn’t have a leg to stand on. This year, after a year in development, it’s looking like my film will finally go into production, come hell or high water. It took me a minute to get here, but I’m over the moon about it. The industry is changing right now. We’re making places for each other regardless of old rules and standards. If you can’t see someone who looks like you, even if there isn’t anyone who looks like you, all the more reason to throw your hat in the ring. Because there are more like you. They need you. We need you.
Athens Academy
Athens Academy is an independent, co-educational school for students in K3 through 12th grade, located on a beautiful 152-acre campus in Northeast Georgia. For over 50 years, Athens Academy has pursued its mission of Excellence with Honor through academics, athletics, fine arts, and service and leadership.
