Tristan Spohn

He considers his mom his greatest hero, who was a teen mom and high school dropout that sometimes gave up eating so he could. He credits her for teaching him the edge of work ethic as she fought her way to the top of the corporate world, earning a master's degree in the process. Growing up, he swore he would be a Wide Receiver in the NFL, but had no idea how much the way he practiced would fuel his imagination. He'd play in the front yard throwing the ball to himself, pretending to be various celebrities in his imaginary celebrity football league. A clipboard was always somewhere in the grass to record stat sheets. Hugh Jackman always dominated. Since Walker Texas Ranger filmed in Dallas, his dad, who once had similar dreams of acting, was a featured extra on many episodes. Episodes he casually played for his son one night during his weekend of custody. A younger version of his dad fluffed a bouquet of flowers, and he fell in love. He started making YouTube videos in his free time, usually with his webcam, over-dramatically lip-syncing to songs that would be removed for copyright. A camera one year for Christmas led to an explosion of ideas, no longer limited by location. He started spending more time making videos than tackling himself in the front yard. His interest in football waned and in 2015, he gave it up to audition for a performing arts high school in downtown: Booker T. Washington. He thought he had no shot but was accepted. His mom's friendship with the head of Public Relations helped. He went full-throttle into acting, starring in six stage productions. Marvel's new series, The Gifted, started filming locally. Tristan signed up to be a high school extra before he was picked out of the crowd due to his uncanny similarity to one of the lead actors: Percy Hynes White. Percy was 16. Tristan was 17. Texas, being a right to work state, meant at 17, Tristan was exempt from the child labor laws Percy was strictly held under. So he was upgraded to photo double, placed to act with the main cast when Percy had to leave the set. After graduation, he packed his bags and went to live on his own in Los Angeles. Two years later, feeling the heat of failure, unable to survive financially, he realized it was time to move back home. He had bought out his lease with help from his mom, plans to move back home, when he had his first offer for representation from Leigh Keene, who was a manager at the time. She helped set-up a meeting with another agency, and poof. He got an agent and manager within the month he had to move back home. In Texas, he started to dip back into a dark place. Eventually, Leigh would leave to become an agent herself, and knowing nobody could represent him better than her, he left his agent to follow her. Time passed, and Tristan started filling out applications for 2-year schools to become a Physical Therapy Assistant. Time to give up what he loved for something he tolerated. He got a whisper while he was eating an orange in the shower, lights turned out. It had been years since he'd done theater--so he sent a last-minute submission to a local theater holding its last round of auditions--in two hours. He scrambled out of the shower--went to that audition--and booked his first lead theater role in two years: Signor Giovio in the Rover Dramawerks production of Delirium's Daughters. As the production ran, his spark reignited. He started going to class with a man who would become the greatest mentor he's ever had: Glenn Morshower. A slew of local productions started booking him for paid work: a 711 commercial, a local crime recreation show, small-budget short films. He withdrew his applications for PTA school and decided failing at what he loved was a lot more exciting than succeeding at something he didn't. Since then, he's started working odd jobs to fund his own content creation, turning in whatever taping requests come in through Leigh.