Charlie T. Thomas
@charlietactor and his dog
-Theatre-
I had never met Charlie. We run in different theatre circles. But I had only heard the kindest things. I knew he was also volunteering for the Atlanta Artist Relief Fund because we had been on a couple of Zoom calls together. I was ultra intrigued by his script breakdown behind his head in the calls so when he reached out to chat for the project I was excited to finally see his office in person.
Apartment complexes are hard to get into so of course with all the codes and gates with Atlanta decks I had a problem getting to Charlie. But when we finally got me in of course the first words out of his mouth he ever said to me in person were, “You look beautiful today” in the most genuine and kind way. So now I was pretty much ready to listen to whatever he had to say.
Interviewed 5.28.20
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Casey: So first and foremost, how are you?
Charlie: If you asked me three days ago, the answer would be different. I'm a little up and down, right now. The climate of the world is not the greatest for my head space at the moment. That being said, I'm still obviously doing happy, I'm healthy. Everything's going well. Social media has become a very toxic place for me to kind of focus on. So I'm finding myself being able to do it for four or five minutes at a time and then immediately logging off. And being like, "I got to go find something else to do." So that being said, outside of those moments and I'm on social media, I'm great. When I hate social media, I'm like, "I don't know how I feel about people today." Then it's just been that nonstop.
Casey: How are you today?
Charlie: I woke up this morning in a great mood, and then I started feeling down on myself and I started cleaning a little bit to kind of clear mind space. Then got down on myself again, and I was like, "You know what? I've been training to be a Shakespeare actor for years. Why don't I actually use this time?" So if you look next to you I actually just recorded myself doing To Be or Not To Be to kind of just put my emotions on some words because I miss performing so bad. So I was like, I'm just going to do this, I'm just going to do that in the next couple of days.
Casey: So how has the motivation to create been?
Charlie: I would say the first half of quarantine, it was high. It was super high. If you look around this wall, you'll see I have a bunch of things that I was going to do and half of those things that I actually completed.
Casey: There's a big list that says "Things to Accomplish During Covid Lockdown.”
Charlie: I've done, One, two, three, four of those. So I'm feeling pretty great! Today I woke up and looked at the list and was like, oh my gosh. I've lost five pounds! I've organized my room. I've finished our patio space, which is really cool at night, and I just finished a writing project of my own, too. So all that's done, so I'm like giving myself space.
But honestly, once I started doing that stuff, I hit a wall and there was just a moment where I was like, "I can't create a thing." All around this room are actually unfinished projects. I have a pizza box under my bed that I'm using for a video that I haven't done. If you look at my closet, I have a whole video setup that I'm using and I haven't finished that video, and a bunch of notebooks that have half written projects. It's kind of been frustrating and enlightening at the same time because obviously I want to create. Since I moved to Atlanta, and started my apprenticeship, that's all I've been doing. I've been acting and writing nonstop. And then when everything in Atlanta stopped, I assumed that, oh, this is the perfect time to work my own stuff. After two or three weeks of pretty strong motivation, like, I just couldn't do anything. I couldn't finish anything. I just started judging it.
it also showed me that a lot about art—the motivation of it—came from me having to be required to do it. I'm in a contract, so I have to be at this rehearsal, or my friends need me to do this project with them because they need another person. So I'll do it for them. But here I am by myself and I was like, "Do I create art for me? Is that a thing?” and then I realized that I didn't. I do a lot for other people and I don't do it for myself. So this past week has kind of been a resurgence where I've kind of picked myself back up and been like, "You know, what does Charlie need to do to create art for himself, to put him back at ease with his emotions?" So I've been doing small things like jotting ideas down. Like I said, I just did this Shakespearean monologue, I've been reading more plays, and I'm helping a friend direct one for Zoom in the next couple of weeks. So I've got a lot of stuff coming up, too.
Casey: What do you think made you pull yourself out of that creative slump this week?
Charlie: I think it was just the fact of last week, finding so many black voices silent—all of a sudden, just people in situations where they just couldn't do anything. They just stopped existing. I thought about what would it be like if I left the world tomorrow? What would I leave? Have I said everything that I wanted to say? Have I done everything that my heart wanted to do? And the answer is no. I have so much more stuff in me to give and so many more words to share with other people. There are other people hurting who also don't get to share their voice. My story is not unique. There are people just like me. I was like, "No, I'm not going to be sad and sorry for myself. I'm still living and breathing and doing very well. I need to just do this." So I kind of just pulled myself out. It's like, "No, we're just going to set this up and we'll just cry about this tomorrow. But for now, we're going to do something." So this is all I got.
Casey: What do you miss about before?
Charlie: HUGS. Hugs. I cannot express . . . Ugh, I can't express more! I miss hugging so damn much that it breaks me. Sometimes, I'll just be standing, like earlier today, I was standing in the middle of the room, I was just like, man, if I could just get one good hug, I'd be solid [. . . ]But, yes, without question, hugging is the one thing that I miss the most. So, you know, I look forward to when people aren't nervous anymore.
Casey: Do you have any new habits that you started in quarantine that you want to take forward to your post-quarantine life?
Charlie: Yeah, actually. One is I wake up every morning in time to drink coffee, and just have one cup of coffee, and just sit here at my desk and that's it. Sometimes I go through Facebook statuses that I've saved to kind of clear out that file. But honestly, I just look out my window.
As you can see, we have a big magnolia tree. It just started blooming two weeks ago, so it's been awesome just to kind of wake up, and there's a fountain back there. To see all this has made me so happy and so peaceful and being like, "You know what, Where am I today emotionally? Is that valid? Do I need to check that?" That's the other thing I've started doing, I question and validate a lot of how I'm feeling on a day.
For the past few years, I've been so busy doing so many things and just feeling like I always have somewhere to be and something to do, that my emotions are a lot up and down. While I am a very introspective person, I don't always check why I'm feeling a certain way. I'm just there. I used to blame it on the fact that, you know, I have manic depression and I'm not on medication until last week. So I usually just blame it on that, just feel like I'm just going through a swing.
But since the quarantine I've just been by myself. I'll be honest with you, the last person I like hanging out with is myself. I do not like hanging out with me, alone. But clocking that and being like, "Okay, so why do I feel angry? Why do I feel sad? Why do I feel happy. What is that about? Cool. Great. That's where we start today." Then just moving on, rather than saying, "God, I wish I didn't feel this way. Man, I wish I could just, you know, be happy today," sort of sulking nonstop. Like not attacking myself for just going through emotions, I guess. So those have been my two favorite habits.
Casey: What do you think that you are going to take away from this chapter in your personal history?
Charlie: I think the resilience of myself has always been something that I've liked about me but didn't realize how good I could be at it until this. Coming into the quarantine, I was terrified. Like I said before, I hate hanging out with myself, but realizing, I dealt with my biggest fear, which is me. So there's not much more that I'm going to feel like frightened about getting through. You know, I'm sitting here. I haven't had a super shock where I had to call like a hotline of some kind or something, which has happened before. I've been okay, and I think I will continue to be okay.
Watching my friends that I've been super worried about and being able to reach out at a moment's notice and just text or call. Even though we're so far apart, the people that I care about and love the most are still within reach. You know, when you see so many people in person all the time, that's taken for granted. Now that I can't see anyone, realizing everyone is the same distance away, that changed me. It makes me feel happier. I don't feel like I'm missing out on someone else's life because I'm not around or they're not in the same city [. . .]
The last thing is just art is ever-changing. It's such an alive thing to realize in two or three weeks into quarantine, when everything's stopped, all of a sudden content after content started popping up and we got virtual cabarets and plays, and someone wrote a Zoom musical that I can't wait to watch. People are interviewing other people. And I've been writing down audition information from people who've been doing workshops and things, and that's been great. So that's been beautiful.
The pressure that we, as artists put on ourselves to create, to always have something ahead of ourselves, to always be working or a project on the horizon. It's just not that serious. It just isn't. Because we're human beings with real emotions that aren't tied to our jobs. So if I end up saying, "I'm not going to be able to film this audition, I'm going to be able to do this." Normally, I would have been like, "That sucks. It's all about the game. It's all about the numbers. I have to get out there," or being like, "I can't write this. Who's going to write this.” Like I said, I was gonna finish this project and it's not finished, but my life keeps on going, everything keeps happening. We still have to take care of ourselves. That is a lesson that I think I want to keep with me for quite some time. I'm really, really holding on to that as much as possible. Just to be a human first and then to be an artist afterwards. That’s the lesson to learn.
