Today we’d like to introduce you to Joe Chazaray.
Joe, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
That’s definitely a loaded question. My story as an artist started really early on with my little brothers and I growing up in the suburbs of Chicago. We were always playing pretend. Making up games and stories. We would use my mom’s flip phone and make crude little films with the camera (definitely not on par with the iPhone cameras of today). We would create these characters and just spend hours playing as these characters outside in our backyard. It really must’ve been a silly sight for the neighbors to watch if they ever caught a glimpse.
I had a lot of anxiety my last couple years of high school because I had no direction really. I was going through the motions of applying for colleges and thinking about what my major would be so I’d be able to get a “real job” and start my life as a productive member of society as soon as I graduated. But I didn’t want that. It’s funny to think about it now but at the time I was having regular panic attacks and had this inescapable feeling like I was sliding off some proverbial rooftop and no matter how much clawed and grabbed a fall was inevitable.
I graduated high school in 2012 at the age of 17, still not really knowing what I wanted to do, I followed my creative artistic instinct and began to write novels and pursued a career as a hip hop artist. Those two things don’t sound like they would go together, and in all honesty, they didn’t. I love hip hop and always loved the idea of being a rapper, but by the same token, I loved the idea of being a novelist. I adored guys like Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Truman Capote and other classic novelists. I romanticized the thought of me sitting in an attic in France somewhere smoking cigarettes and sipping coffee while I wrote my great works. And being mentioned as a great along guys like Hemingway was just the coolest thing I thought. So I began to write. I wrote raps and I wrote short stories and a novel. I would go to little events in Chicago and rap my little raps and I would draft my manuscripts and send them out and get rejection after rejection email. That put me in a bad head space because all the rejection was administered and received remotely so it didn’t ever feel legitimate or based on anything other than the world was against me.
17 was a big year for me because this was also when I started writing screenplays. I don’t really remember the exact thought process I went through when I started writing screenplays but I know it something to do with the fact that 17 was the age I saw Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction; and consequently became a giant fan of Quentin Tarantino. I remember the feeling more than anything after I saw those films. They struck such a nerve with me. More than just being a fan of what I just saw, but instead, I felt a calling, like I had this urge to want to make films like that. To write films like that. So I got to work.
For the next 3 years I plugged away at that goal and wrote every day. It was hard. I had to teach myself everything and learn by writing garbage and having friends critique my work which was painful but necessary. I slowly stopped writing and performing rap as well as writing novels, and by the time I was 19 writing screenplays and short films was all I was doing.
I started acting when I was 19 because there was still this performance urge that I had that drew me to want to be a rapper in the first place. A need for attention maybe. So I got myself cast in a movie. Ramifications of Nene. A feature film that you can find on Amazon Prime somewhere. The kind of sucks if I’m being honest and I wouldn’t recommend watching it but the experience of acting and working on that film was fun and I really enjoyed the process of making film.
I began my acting training when I was 20 and this really needs a whole section of it’s own for me to unpack all of it but I’ll do my best to give you the short of it while still doing it justice.
My acting training was at the Gately Poole acting conservatory in DeKalb, IL where we learned how to act surrounded by corn fields at a dingy Red Roof inn (that had a green roof). I loved it! The time I spent there will always be a cherished memory. I studied with Kathryn Gately and Richard Poole, two world renowned acting coaches I was grateful to meet. I worked with them from 2015 to 2017 and received the best acting training I could’ve asked for. I had never acted so much in my life. We worked from 8 am to midnight everyday while the intensive was going on. We’d do it in 3 week stints multiple times during the year. They taught me discipline as an actor and respect for the craft of acting. It was there at one of the intensives where Kathryn and Rick convinced me to really work my comedy muscle and that I could really be a strong comedic actor if I wanted to, which is something that had never crossed my mind. It took me until I was 21 to even consider pursuing a career in comedy. Which now is all I do practically. Kathryn really insisted that I get on a stage and try performing stand up and sketch comedy. Not that they didn’t think I could be dramatic but they saw that I was only doing dramatic and felt I was grossly handicapping myself by neglecting my strongest asset. When I started doing comedy is when I really started to turn a corner and grow as an actor and performer. I owe a lot of that to Rick and Kathryn. Before I finished my time there they’d given me this whole new philosophy not only about what it meant to be an actor but what it meant to be an artist and they made me feel like I actually had a chance to do something special in this industry. To work and make a living in this industry. And the fact that the conservatory took place at a moldy Red Roof Inn made me feel like Ralph Macchio learning karate from Mr. Miyagi in his dusty old back yard in the Karate Kid movies. I absolutely loved learning acting that way.
I left that program when I was 22 and I was riding this huge wave of momentum. I’d just signed to my first agent and I had a pool of friends in the industry who I could work with and grind with. Grow as artists with.
Which brings us to today, I’m 23 years old and most of my time now is spent writing, acting in, and shooting films (mostly comedies) with my close friends from the Gately Poole acting conservatory. Those being, Vijay Sarathi, JP Thomas, and Sarah Navy. I also perform sketch comedy with those folks around the city under the name The Gatelys, to pay homage to our beloved teachers Kathryn Gately and Richard Poole. I also keep myself busy with my YouTube channel and IGtv Channel where I upload original content of me being a fool with the intention of making folks laugh. I know I still have a long way to go before I get to the level of artist I want to be but right now I’m just taking it day by day and loving every second of it.
Also, side note, I’m getting ready to play a rapper in the series Life in This City written and directed by Terrell Effeno Williams. So I guess all that time I spent rapping wasn’t all for nothing!
Can you give our readers some background on your art?
I write and perform. I write jokes, sketches, and films. I’m lucky enough to be surrounded by a motivated group of actors, writers, and filmmakers here in the city who want to work with me. I don’t really have a message to my work. I feel like “trying” to inspire a trap artist can fall in to and create drab, depressing, boring work. I feel if you just make cool interesting stuff that you yourself would like then you’re bound to inspire somebody.
My work is heavily influenced by Tarantino, the Coen brothers, and Louis CK. I really find joy in mixing elements of comedy and drama in my films and sketches. Even when I act too. My goal mostly with my films or a performance I give is to entertain and to make people laugh. There is no better feeling to me than hearing a crowd of people laugh at a joke I wrote, or a line of dialogue I delivered, or a absurd situation I’ve found myself in on stage.
How do you think about success, as an artist, and what do quality do you feel is most helpful?
That’s a tough one. I know what it is, but it’s hard for me to describe. It’s more than just being financially care free, which would be nice don’t get me wrong, but there is another level to success for me in a perfect world. I will consider myself successful artist when I hit that groove where I’m creating things that really connect with people and I have a fan base of folks who are eager to know what I’m doing and hungry to consume what I make and we enter this cycle of gratitude for each other that is beautiful and holds power. Something based in love and connected on a deep spiritual level, not to sound too hippie dippy. I’d really like to think I’d get to a point where I write a film, or give a performance, or create something, that inspires a 17-year-old kid somewhere the same way Quentin Tarantino inspired me with Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction when I was 17.
What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
People can see my work on my YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCURJBYKQb18-VZYZ9_AAXDw
They can come see me perform around the city of Chicago as well.
To support me subscribe to my YouTube Channel and follow me on Instagram.
On Instagram is where I post comedy performances I have coming up and where I promote films I’ve worked on and where they’re premiering if they’re premiering.
IG : https://www.instagram.com/joechazaray/
Contact Info:
- Email: josephchazaray@yahoo.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joechazaray/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/joechazarayofficial/
- Other: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCURJBYKQb18-VZYZ9_AAXDw
Image Credit:
Joe Chazaray. Zoe Deprez. Vijay Sarathi.
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