How an Acting Teacher’s Tough Lesson Changed my Life

(LOS ANGELES) – “You are talented, but you are uneducated.” Those were the words that changed my life forever. 

It was a breezy start to November 2015, and I enrolled in an intensive 16-week Spanish acting workshop at the Stella Adler Acting Academy in Los Angeles. This workshop would be my first professional training, and I had to combine it with my full-time job at an automotive factory, where I clocked in at 5:00 a.m.

 I grew up in Honduras and moved to the United States when I was 19. In my home country, no one ever exposed me to the arts. My family raised me in poverty in a tiny village where we suffered the deprivation of basic needs like electricity and technology, so there was no television around our house. My only contact with the arts was listening to radio novelas on an old radio that belonged to my great-grandfather. But I knew that I wanted to become an actor; that idea was born in my mind when I was seven years old, and as soon as I landed in the U.S., I began chasing my childhood dream.

 The Stella Adler Academy is a performing art school in Los Angeles. Actors like Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Benicio del Toro, Salma Hayek, and Mark Ruffalo have passed by the institution’s classrooms. Indeed, when I enrolled in this school, my lack of education kept me from realizing how important this acting academy was. I chose it because the acting program was in Spanish, and I didn’t speak English then.

 On my first day of class, I met the person who would change my life; she was a Venezuelan professor and filmmaker, Elia K. Schneider. She was tall, had short hair, and was very articulate with sophisticated mannerisms. Ms. Schneider wasn’t an easy teacher to please; people who knew Stella Adler used to say that Adler was a tough-acting teacher, but Ms. Schneider was even more demanding.

 I vividly remember performing my first scene for Ms. Schneider; she assigned me a scene from “The Seagull” by Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. The scene occurred in what Chekhov called a samovar, and I set the typical American bar on the stage decorated with liquor bottles. Of course, my interpretation of a samovar was entirely wrong. A samovar is a tea container, often featured in Chekhovian settings, where characters gather around it to share evening tea. Ms. Schneider, visibly irritated, asked me if I knew what a samovar was, so I responded, “No.” Then she uttered, “You are a talented artist, but you are painfully uneducated.” I looked to the ground with an involuntary smirk, trying to avoid eye contact with her.

 When class was over, Ms. Schneider pulled me aside, and again, she said, “What are you doing to educate yourself? Do you go to school? Do you read?” I told her I was an operator at a factory, working a ten-hour shift. She looked at me, nodded her head with compassion, and told me firmly that I needed to pursue an education. “You need to have a decent knowledge about history, economy, social classes, gender roles, and politics to understand Chekhov,” she said.

 Studying for me in 2015 was something unthinkable. How could I become a student if I didn’t speak English? However, Ms. Schneider made the point that if one day I wanted to become a good actor, I had to start educating myself. So the following week after our conversation, I enrolled in GED classes. In 2016, I completed my high school equivalency diploma. I liked how it felt when I walked the aisle in a green emerald graduation gown. Eventually, I enrolled in the theatre program at California State University Fullerton, where I completed my program with honors.

 Before I went to college, I struggled to assimilate into the U.S. Going out of the house made me feel self-conscious. Yet, a different universe of possibilities opened up to me after going to college and learning the language. I developed new habits like going to the movies and falling so deeply in love with American independent cinema to the point that I became a cinephile. I also learned my duty as a Latino immigrant in an American society and why, for immigrants, it is paramount to know and get involved in politics.

 On May 23, 2020, at 11:10 a.m. Ms. Schneider sent me what would be her last text to me. It was a long chat on messenger where she told me that she was happy and proud of me, that I was one of her few students that understood the concept of her acting workshop. She asked me to keep her updated with the progress of my academic journey. Sadly, Ms. Schneider passed away in August 2020. The only comfort that lingers is in mentioning how grateful I was  — and still am to this day — for her patience and mentoring.

 I would never have been able to excel in college or achieve any academic goal without Ms. Schneider’s teachings. In college, I was a thousand steps ahead of the other students because Ms. Schneider introduced me to the most prolific playwrights and plays. When it was time to study Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, or Eugene O’Neill, I didn’t panic like most of my classmates because I had already met them, which made me feel empowered and confident.

 I don’t think college made me more intelligent, but it aroused an urgency to investigate and inform myself so that my ignorance would be temporary. I believe that’s what Ms. Schneider wanted for me. Sometimes, we need people to be brutally honest with us so that our potential can explode like  a volcanic eruption, just as Elia K. Schneider did with me. 

Now in 2025, I look forward to graduating from my Master’s in Journalism program at New York University. When I look back to the day Ms. Schneider told me I was uneducated and compare it to the present, I can see the stunning difference between then and now. I went to Stella Adler to become a better actor, but it turned out that I became a better human being.