As far as actors go, there are some who just stick out in your mind more than others because of their amazing work. Eli Gathegi is one of those actors. He’s managed to make every role he’s ever played seem effortless as if he’s immersed himself right into it with ease. From playing evil vampire Laurent in the Twilight series to playing the fabulous Dr. Cole in House, he’s done it all with so much beautiful talent that we cannot get enough of him. We just cannot wait to see him in any project he’s working on, and we cannot wait to see him work on something else. He’s someone you have to get to know since he’s so capable of making us all feel like he’s got so much more to him than meets the eye.
1. He’s From Nairobi, but He Wasn’t Raised There
He was born in Kenya, but his family didn’t stick around for long. They made the decision to leave their home and take their family to California, and that’s where they put down their roots. They took it upon themselves to find a home in Albany, which is where he was raised. He went to school there, played basketball growing up, and had a lot of friends and fun memories from his childhood.
2. He’s Educated
After completing his high school education, Gathegi went to college. He began his education at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Then he went on to New York where he went to the Tisch School of the Arts. He played basketball in college in California, but he suffered from an injury that left him unable to play for the entire course of his education. It was the injury that stopped him from pursuing a career in sports and turned him on to acting. That’s when he decided to take a few acting classes, which then led him to New York, which then led him to playing some of the coolest roles in the world.
3. He’s A Huge Fan of Vampires
Well, not of vampires, per say. He’s a big fan of Stephenie Meyer’s series, Twilight. He was cast as Laurent in the movies, but he did not know that the character was a vampire. He had no knowledge of the book or the story, so he decided to sit down and binge read them all at once. He now considers himself a huge fan of the series, though that’s a smart thing to say when you’re making money from playing one of them. It is good reading, though, so we are with him on that one.
4. He Was Depressed
There wasn’t a time in his life when he felt lower than he did the day he injured his knee playing ball in college. He’d never not played, and this was a new experience for him. To lose what he loved and what he’d worked so hard for was hard on him, and it sent him into a depression that lasted until he was able to pull himself out of that and move on.
5. He Took Acting Classes Because they Were Easy
Back when he was injured in college, he couldn’t walk. He spent months unable to walk, and he wanted to be sure his schedule was an easy one that semester so he wasn’t more inconvenienced. He figured acting would make an easy A for him. Turns out, it also made him millions in the long run since he landed a gig as a famous actor before much longer.
6. He Doesn’t Believe in Doubt
When asked if he doubted his dreams of becoming an actor before he landed any work and it was still hard for him, he said that he couldn’t doubt himself. Why? Because everyone else already did, and he couldn’t be just like them.
7. Plan B Isn’t An Option
He feels that if you have a Plan B, you don’t really have a Plan A. This means what, precisely? It means you don’t believe that you can actually execute your plan because you’ve already planned for failure by creating a secondary plan assuming the first won’t work out.
8. Ben Affleck Gave Him Confidence
When he was chosen to work with Ben Affleck in “Gone Baby Gone,” he learned what it meant to get some serious confidence in the work he did. He wasn’t sure that there was another way he could find it, and he didn’t even feel he’d ‘made’ it until that movie. It was getting to work with someone so famous that was so big for him. There were some seriously famous faces in Twilight, but many of those people weren’t nearly as famous prior to the movie series as they were after the movies came out, and none were as experienced or as famous as Ben Affleck.
9. He Wants a Family
When asked where he sees himself in the future, when he’s lived his life and he’s had his successes and has had everything he ever wanted in his life, his first reaction is that he sees himself with his gorgeous family. His gorgeous wife, his gorgeous kids, his gorgeous house. That’s telling. The fact that his first thought about all he could have in life is a wife and kids tells us that he is a man who will very likely make an excellent husband and an excellent father as that’s what he sees as most important at the end of the day.
10. He Believes in Honesty
If he could give some advice to those who want to go into the same line of work, he asks that they ask themselves what they are really doing. And, is there anything that would make them just as happy or happier, and then go do that because this lien of work is hard and it’s not for those who do not truly want it and believe in it or have what it takes to get the jobs and stay on top of inconsistent work.
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