Coming soon to a screen near you: Ethan Walker

Aurora High School is full of a wide variety of intelligent, talented and unique students. One of those students is Senior Ethan Walker who not only stands out for his sense of humor, loud personality and for being our class president, but is also an aspiring actor.

When talking to Ethan about his acting I was first interested in where It all began.

“I was diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy going into sophomore year and there was a period of time following my diagnosis where I thought I wasn’t going to be able to play basketball again. That caused me to pursue other interests, including acting and music and I fell in love with acting.”

After finding a silver lining and a new hobby, he is still participating in shows two and a half years later. Walker has been in a variety of shows including Into The Woods, New Kid, Anything Goes and many more.

Being a part of such a competitive field requires Ethan to have an agent that helps him book auditions. One of his more recent auditions was for a Netflix show coming out in 2019 and he has also auditioned for multiple commercials, one of them being a toothpaste commercial.

When conversing with Ethan about the beginning of his journey in acting, I was curious to know why he enjoys acting. He responds by saying, “I love being able to portray a character completely different from myself because I find it challenging and interesting to get into the mind of another person. I really enjoy making people feel something when they’re watching me on stage, whether they’re laughing or crying.”

After starting sophomore year, he has learned and accomplished many things. One of those things Walker says is, “My biggest tangible accomplishment so far has been my acceptance into some high quality and competitive colleges

but I consider what I’ve learned about myself and about this field to be more valuable than any letter of acceptance.”

Becoming an actor has taught Ethan many lessons and given him the opportunity to grow and expand his options. Acting has become a crucial part to Walker’s life and has become something that is important to him.

However, it is not always fun and games because while there are many pros to acting there are also cons. “With acting comes a lot of rejection because casting agents look for such a specific person for most roles so dealing with the rejection can get difficult but it’s all a part of the game so you just kind of learn to take it as it comes.”

He also expresses how acting has been personally difficult for him, “It’s been difficult to allow myself to be completely emotionally vulnerable in order to portray a character’s feelings but the reward of the impact it has on the audience is well worth the challenge.”

While acting may be fun, it is a difficult and competitive field to be going into that comes with its challenges. Regardless of the difficulties associated with acting this is something Ethan would like to pursue as a career and plans on attending college in the fall to further his studies in the field. Ethan has spent his senior year traveling around the country, auditioning for multiple different schools, in hopes of finding the perfect one.

After he finishes college Ethan says, “Long term I hope to be working in Television or film.”

Although he is still unsure as to where he would like to attend school in the fall, he has his mind set on entering the television/ entertainment business. After a successful start to his career, he’s ready to take on the world of acting and make his dream a reality.