FEATURED    GRADUATE

to try to do anything? Does he want to be in a movie?’ And I was ‘yeah, sure, why not?’ So it was very casual for me. I got into it by accident, just because that was what we did. I got some early success. I got a show pretty early on, though that didn't end up going anywhere. We filmed a pilot episode and it didn't get picked up by a network, but I just kept with it. Much later on down the line, I got a show called Daredevil with Marvel. It was on Netflix. I did that for four seasons. And I was in Ozark. It had some big names in it, like Jason Bateman and Laura Linney. And I was their son. It's a pretty dark show, but I had a lot of fun. That was like the last kind of big thing I did, and I was trying to make a decision: okay, at this point I have that acting side to me, but I also have a lot of other interests. I love building things, I love making things. I always thought maybe mechanical engineering or something like that would be in my future, which is a very interesting combination with acting. So do I want to pursue purely acting or do I want to try to expand my horizons a little bit?

Where has that brought you to now?

I applied to a few places for post-secondary, but wasn't really happy the first year. Then I ended up applying a second time to a program at USC, which is where I am now. The major is Art, Technology, and the Business of Innovation. It's a very unique program. It's not a part of any other school or anything. It's kind of its own program within USC. And they focus on entrepreneurship. A lot of people go there with different plans in mind: some people go for product design, some people go for hardware development... Lots of different courses through this. And that's where I am now, basically. 

What did your homeschooling look like for you? 

Acting wasn't the primary driver for homeschooling. My mom always knew that she wanted to do homeschooling, I guess out of a lack of trust for public education. It's very nice to have the freedom, and it did end up working out very well with acting because that's a big time commitment. Early on in homeschooling, I would do things with my siblings, because we were all homeschooled. So my mom was my teacher. I wasn't really a part of any co-op or anything like that. We went through all the subjects, but with the added flexibility of being able to pursue the things that I thought were more interesting. I almost feel like the more interesting parts of my homeschool career were the things that I was able to do outside of the actual subjects. I had the ability to try writing some stuff, or acting, or making things, product design, or I would build things with my dad. He did construction, so I made these cajun drums and some really cool birdhouses. So I got to kind of pursue the maker side of me because I had that flexibility of being homeschooled. Originally, my mom didn't think that she was going to homeschool through high school, but me and my siblings were all, ‘we're not going to switch to public school now. We already have homeschool friends. That's just changing schools at this point. That's not what we want to do.’

How did you balance homeschooling with acting?

It's tricky at times because acting is very unpredictable. You might audition for something, and either you won't hear back at all, which is the most common thing, or they might get back to you and be like, ‘hey, we need you in Toronto in a week’, and you just have to be able to drop everything and just go. So it meant that it was kind of hard to make commitments to some other things. Like, I would have loved to do a robotics club or something like that, and I wasn't able to. Not that I would say I regret homeschooling. I had some pretty awesome opportunities because of it, but it changed my trajectory a little bit: the types of people I was around and club opportunities.

What would an average day look like when you're filming?

They're actually required during the school year to hire an on-set tutor, because they need to make sure you're getting stuff done. They're not used to having homeschoolers. They usually deal with people who are in public school and so then they have to have a tutor who's actually teaching them the subjects. But I was so self-sufficient and I had my textbooks, the device that I was using to learn, and once I was in high school, I had online AP classes and that sort of thing. The tutor never really had anything to do. So, honestly, they were more of a distraction than a help. So, I guess the average day would be, you get up, sometimes early. Timing is always very, very different on a day-to-day basis. Sometimes you get there early. You have a third of a trailer, and that's kind of where you live while you're not actually filming on set. You just sit in there and I'll get my work done. There's a little desk in there, and usually my mom and my tutor are chatting in the background while I actually do some of the work. It's very hard to have a chunk of time. It gets very split up, so I have to constantly go to set, interrupt whatever math homework I'm doing, come back, go back to set again. So very odd all around, but it worked well for me. It never felt like it was too difficult or I was like missing out on something, although sometimes it meant some later nights to catch up on some stuff later.

Are you still working in the film industry? 

Since I started college, I haven't really worked anymore in film. I've been focusing on the other areas that I'm pursuing right now. I have auditioned for things, and I've gotten close on a bunch of things, actually. Like I was actually very close to getting the How to Train Your Dragon live action. That would have been pretty cool. There were a lot of near misses, which I'm okay with because I was always a little bit torn: I feel a little bit like I'm abandoning my career and the success that I have found and just taking a completely unknown route. But I think, ultimately, those are the things that I want to build out more, my skill set. And I think I'm all for taking that risk, and even though it may be harder to get back into it after college, I think it's worth it overall. I have a high risk tolerance, and I think it's important to just try stuff. I don't want to get stuck in one thing for too long. I'd like to have my options open to me, I guess. 

What is the most important thing that you're working on now?

I feel like there's a lot of little things, which is part of the nature of my program. Because of how many different parts there are to my program, it can get a little bit confusing at times. I'm learning web design, I'm learning coding, I'm learning traditional UI, UX, graphic design, that kind of stuff. I'm taking some screenwriting classes. So it feels like I'm exploring such a broad range of things at the moment. There is no one thing, so it's a little bit difficult to answer. But, something that's exciting to me now is that I was working on building a product. I'll give you a brief version of what it is. Basically, I’ve had tons and tons of friends who have trouble waking up in the morning. So I was working on an AI product that is a physical arm that attaches to your bed and has the ability to know once you've actually gotten up out of bed. It doesn't let you snooze it. You have to actually get up, and you can't go back to bed afterwards. It's kind of a funny project, but I've gotten a lot of validation as I've been exploring this, and it's really fun just to do product design, something completely different. And I'm still working on that now, so we'll see if it ever comes to market. I think I have more building to do first. I'm trying to take one step at a time, but ultimately marketing it commercially would be pretty cool. 

Do you have any plans for after university?

I think it's a little bit of taking what comes right now. Lots of different options.

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Luisa Ensslin is a Grade 12 student in Canada. She loves all things writing, be they newspaper articles, novels, checklists, or reading things that talented people have written.