Who?
Tyler Labine, actor
Where?
Ojai, California
What?
A native of Canada who has spent much of his life in Los Angeles, Tyler Labine began his professional acting career before he even made it to high school. He’s received credits in dozens of TV series and films over the last three decades, and currently stars on the hit NBC series New Amsterdam, where he plays attending child psychiatrist ‘Dr. Iggy Frome.’ He can also be seen on the new season of the BBC America series Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, starring opposite Elijah Wood and Samuel Barnett as ‘Sherlock Hobbs,’ an overly enthusiastic small-town sheriff.
My favorite quote is…
by Agnes DeMille: “No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction; a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.”
I always smile when…
I get home to Ojai.
The best movie I’ve seen recently is…
John Wick 3. Keanu Reeves is kind of my hero.
My morning routine…
involves making my three kids breakfast and making myself a huuuuge smoothie. Then shove them into our minivan and race them off to school.
In 10 years I hope to be…
still learning and discovering things about my craft and myself as a creative entity. Because when the discovery stops, the joy and wonder die.
I am working toward that 10-year goal by…
constantly challenging myself as an artist. I act, I write, I make music, I draw. I try to step into unknown territory with confidence and a willingness to fail and try again.
The book that has changed my life the most is…
It. I can’t thing of another book that has stuck with me more in my entire life. I read that thing when I was 10. Why? Who knows. But I did and I have had a healthy/borderline crippling fear of clowns ever since. Thanks, Stephen King.
When self-doubt creeps in, I handle it by…
letting it. I even let it take over sometimes. I have come to understand that it is just a fleeting feeling no matter how overwhelming it seems at the time. It ebbs. It even informs me in some helpful ways. I just know that it can’t crush me and that makes me always push through. Because I know for a fact there is the other side of it right around the corner.
I define success as…
being truly happy, being OK with who you are and living life without fear. Whatever that fear is, let it go. It hurts you more than you realize. That’s it. Allow yourself to love yourself. Go for it. What’s the worst that could happen?
This article originally appeared in the September/October 2019 issue of SUCCESS magazine.
