Name: Julien Ari Bensimhon
Position in School of Theatre: Senior B.A. Theatre Major with a focus on acting
Hometown: Miami, FL
I first fell in love with theatre in 8th grade when I decided to choose drama as my elective. My teacher was inspiring and cast me in a show which I BOMBED but decided to audition for the magnet program at the high school I was going to. Because I auditioned late I got into the program 2 weeks late and walked into people rolling on the floor in tights and black shirts and thought wow, this is definitely what I want to do. Ever since then it was passion, love, work, fun….it changed my life.
The best performance I have ever seen had to have been a production of Shakespeare’s Henry IV parts one and two. They were at the Globe Theatre in London and I saw them both in two nights one after the other. You learn about the Globe in history classes and you read his plays but you never know what it really felt like until you stand as a groundling in the pit in the freezing cold watching this perfected performance of one of your favorite plays. It was an experience unlike any other.
I would love to be a professional international food writer, journalist. I am in love with traveling and I think food is such an important aspect of culture that I would love to dedicate my profession and life to experiencing.
Free time? That is a new concept to me. I guess I will try exploring that once I graduate from the School of Theatre at Florida State and get back to you. No but in all honesty, I love to drive and explore. At the end of last semester, I actually got in my car and drove around for a few hours and found myself in Georgia. I parked my car and walked around a small little town center and found a great little theatre that I intend to go back to for a show before I leave. I do that wherever I am with a car or without.
My theatre professor Andrea Kidd studied here as a B.A. and it was her school of choice when it came to us applying for schools. She would talk about it since we came in as freshman to when we were leaving as seniors and when I traveled up to see the campus, I immediately fell in love. And thankfully, because these four years would not have been the same if it weren’t for the people and the opportunities I have had unique to FSU. I am always proud to be a NOLE!
I will talk as a student of theatre as that is what I know at the moment. DO NOT compare yourself to others. Rather, see what you have to offer and accentuate it to let that shine in an interview or an audition. There are so many actors and theatre professionals in the world, that it really is the thing that you have no one else doesn’t that will push you even further so don’t hide that by trying to be someone you think you should be. Do well morally and work hard!
If I could have dinner with anyone, I think I would have to be cliché and invite William Shakespeare. I just think if I had the opportunity why not invite a man whose plays have been so influential to theatre then and now. I would ask him so many questions both specific to some of his writings and also general questions on his career and what not. Maybe get the inside scoop on the mystery of whether or not he actually wrote the plays. How amazing would that be? Wow, now I am excited about something that will never happen.