Tom Ardavany featured in Beverly Hills Lifestyle Magazine with Josh Holloway

The Ardavany Approach was featured in Beverly Hills Lifestyle Magazine.

A moment with Josh Holloway

by Tara Hodgeson

Everyone has that one television series they are just absolutely hooked on. For me, it has been ABC’s hit show LOST that has kept me and millions of other viewers on the edge of our seats for the past…oh, six years! Recently, I was blessed to have a chance to sit down with one of the stars of that show.  I met with Josh Holloway, the actor who plays the evil “Sawyer”, in an intimate setting before Tom Ardavany’s “Actors on Acting” seminar at RMD Entertainment in Santa Monica. Very few actors as successful as Holloway take the time to really share their story and the techniques behind their success, but Ardavany, who was Holloway’s acting coach, created a series of seminars to bring artists into a setting where they can share their creative processes with other actors. Hey, I may not be an actor, but if it means getting to ask Sawyer even one question, I’m in.

The instant Holloway began to speak, I just had to close my eyes and – Yup, I felt like I was a guest star in one of those crazy episodes of LOST being chased by a smoke monster or getting shot at by rogue members of the Dharma initiative. It was strange to meet Sawyer in person. Could this really be him? The five o’clock shadow? Check. Dimples? Check. Shaggy long hair? Check. Southern drawl? Check. This was definitely Holloway – a fascinating combination of the surly, sexy, and always surprising.

After listening for a few minutes, it became very clear that Holloway’s path to success had been anything but a skip down the yellow brick road. After traveling the world, modeling for print, and opening a restaurant, he was scrambling for his next step in life. He had always wanted to be an actor, but was scared of the cliché that came with it.  However, like his character in LOST – if it scared him – he had to conquer it.

Behind great actors, there is always a great teacher. Holloway and Ardavany met at a cold reading class and soon after Holloway became a student of the Ardavany Approach, a unique method for enhancing perception and creative expression. The Ardavany Approach offered Holloway a brilliant way to marry the theoretical with the practical – a way to bridge deep personal learning in class with the rigors and practical requirements of on-camera work. “It was an incredible epiphany when I found out you can just use everything you have in your life and apply it to acting,” shared Holloway.  “You just fill up and deliver. Tom showed me the bug of the craft, and it was an incredible experience.”

After years of teaching the Ardavany Approach, Ardavany knows that certain the key elements of the art of taking action can not be taught through the intellect alone.  Holloway’s experience is proof. As Ardavany put it, “Josh has always had ‘it’. The craft of acting is taking what you already are and shaping that into illusion for the audience. So my education with Josh has been helping him recognize the freedom he is currently enjoying in the hit television show LOST.  He came late in the game, 27, and it takes a tremendous amount of courage to do so.”

Courage is something that Holloway’s character on LOST knows all too well, but how about the actor himself? I asked him if he was intimidated embarking on an acting career so late in the game. He looked at me and grinned – a grin us LOST fans know all too well – “Well, heck yeah it was absolutely intimidating! It was a crossroads in my life, and I had tried to keep myself out of it because of my own fears. I pretty much depended on my drive to live this life, and it scared me – - and things that scare me I gotta go for. I gotta face.”

The thing that separated Holloway from the rest, recounts Ardavany, was his desire and persistence. It is that persistence and that drive, not just the talent or skill, that makes the difference. Once an artist wakes up into his artistry and truly knows him or her self, Ardavany likes to say, then they are ready to create illusions.  This capacity to create becomes a powerful force. Holloway obviously knew exactly what Ardavany was saying as he chuckled and told me that you are compelled to act whether you get paid for it or not. Why would you do this if you aren’t getting the pay off? Because you are compelled. You are an artist.

It is no secret that the actor’s life is a brutal one, filled with constant rejection and uncertainty, but Holloway doesn’t hold any grudges. That is just how it is. It is all a link in the chain. Each interview, each class, each audition, all links in the chain. You have to be ready in this town, or they will crush you…and smile when they do it. Holloway remembers many moments of despair while trying to make it in this cut-throat industry. “This town will break you. It broke me three times. I quit. I told my now wife, ‘Hey, I am going to be forest ranger and a real estate agent. Cool with you? Ok, cool. I quit.’ Four days later I got the call from the casting crew at LOST.”

Ardavany has watched many actors rise and fall in the industry and knows that doing the work of the artist is the salvation. “It is your joy. Outside of your acting process there is a storm, but as long as you can show up and do your work, you can find solace and tremendous inspiration.”

It was a rocky road for Holloway but once he got the call from the LOST crew, his life was never the same again. The people he surrounds himself with are key. “My wife has been a solid rock in supporting me and letting me do what I dreamed of. She allowed me to struggle in this which is vital because a lot of times your influences can be negative. It is such a process because most people want to just say, ‘Hey man, good try. Let it go.’ They think they are protecting you. Everyone has a time limit that they think you are on. Ok, you have done it now, move on….You can’t listen to that stuff.”

Ardavany doesn’t know an actor who never needed support. The moment you decide to be an artist, there is a part of you that needs to be protected. As Ardavany cautions, “The higher Josh goes, the more guidance and support he will need.  The right kind of support will allow him to have more freedom, make better choices, and just entertain us all the more.”

Although this is his last season on LOST  (IS IS THE LAST SEASON OF LOST – IF SO, STATE IT THAT WAY), this is just the beginning for Holloway as he makes the switch from television to the big screen. “My mission in life is to inspire and be inspired, through art. That is what makes me tick.” Expect to see big things from Mr. Holloway as he continues to “tick” his way through Hollywood.