From justin​
Everyone has dreams. What makes a difference is what we do about these dreams. Everyone has a story. What makes it unique is not our background or training, but the life experiences and the choices we make.
I was born into a successful Jewish family. A third-generation Bostonian. The Boston characteristics run deep in my veins. My grandfather, Gene Dennis, was a musician well known in the Boston area. My dad, Joel Dennis, was a great athlete at Newton North High School where he excelled at football, and his shot put record was kept for 25 years. He later competed in football and shot put at University of New Hampshire. He was also a world-class weight lifter, and was invited to the Macabbi games in Israel. As a young kid growing up, I often marveled at my father's accomplishments, which inspired me to work toward greatness. My mother, Eve Dennis, is a woman of a number of skills. She taught at Hebrew school, painted, played softball, and most astonishingly, pursued a career as an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) at the age of 48. My mother never let anything, especially age, prevent her from living her life. It's through my mom that I learned that I can achieve anything I want but only through hard, hard work.
My family was very well off until 9/11 struck, and my family's travel business was ruined in the aftermath. I was 11 years old. The destruction to our country as well as my family was profound in my heart. Since the attacks, we've been fighting to keep our family together. Unfortunately we failed. We lost our house and the rest of my family sought a fresh start in Florida as I remained in Boston to pursue film.
In midst of the chaos I became quite vigilant. I learned to observe, to understand people's psychology through their behavior, to work hard to better hopeless situations, to not accept fate as it presents itself.
Long before I started competing on the stage, I was competing on the athletic fields. As a teenager I excelled at baseball, football, wrestling, and weight lifting. But at the age of 16 I learned of 2 budging discs as well as 2 fractures around my L4 and L5 vertebrae. The injury inevitably costed me my hopes of pursing football and wrestling collegiately. The irony behind the injury is that it was induced by too much work. My body was starting to fail me due to putting too much strain on it at a young age. But it's that type of behavior that defines Justin Dennis.
Not being the one to quit, I turned my focus to baseball, weightlifting and bodybuilding in college, and placed second at a regional bodybuilding and fitness competition. I've spent most of my time in the athletic but it was a literature course that changed my life.
During my senior year in college, I took a Holocaust literature course. As a Jewish man I already had a connection to the content of the class but I did not realize how moved one could be from words. It was at that point I asked myself, "how can I move people the way I was moved in that Holocaust course?"
The answer was acting. Not classically trained, I struggled with a way to break into entertainment. But I've always believed in the power of action, the power of working hard to build your dreams with your bare hands. So I started taking classes at Boston Casting in the very little spare time I had from my full time job. Through Boston Casting, I found my way into stand up comedy, and to my surprise, I was good at it. I played at clubs from Comedy Studio and The Comedy Den in Boston to The Comedy Connection in Providence, RI. I'll always thank stand up for giving me "the thick skin needed when dealing with casting directors and auditions."
After about a year of performing stand up, I decided to quit my full time job, and pick up a flexible job driving trucks and commit to acting full time, because I know, the weight of a dream is worth so much more than an ordinary full time job. Since then, I have been in nearly 20 productions ranging from student shorts to Indie features.
This is not the end of the story. This is just the beginning. I can't predict what is going to happen in the future, but I can guarantee you I'll work hard to pursue my dream, because this is how we built this country, the pursuit of the American Dream.
I was born into a successful Jewish family. A third-generation Bostonian. The Boston characteristics run deep in my veins. My grandfather, Gene Dennis, was a musician well known in the Boston area. My dad, Joel Dennis, was a great athlete at Newton North High School where he excelled at football, and his shot put record was kept for 25 years. He later competed in football and shot put at University of New Hampshire. He was also a world-class weight lifter, and was invited to the Macabbi games in Israel. As a young kid growing up, I often marveled at my father's accomplishments, which inspired me to work toward greatness. My mother, Eve Dennis, is a woman of a number of skills. She taught at Hebrew school, painted, played softball, and most astonishingly, pursued a career as an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) at the age of 48. My mother never let anything, especially age, prevent her from living her life. It's through my mom that I learned that I can achieve anything I want but only through hard, hard work.
My family was very well off until 9/11 struck, and my family's travel business was ruined in the aftermath. I was 11 years old. The destruction to our country as well as my family was profound in my heart. Since the attacks, we've been fighting to keep our family together. Unfortunately we failed. We lost our house and the rest of my family sought a fresh start in Florida as I remained in Boston to pursue film.
In midst of the chaos I became quite vigilant. I learned to observe, to understand people's psychology through their behavior, to work hard to better hopeless situations, to not accept fate as it presents itself.
Long before I started competing on the stage, I was competing on the athletic fields. As a teenager I excelled at baseball, football, wrestling, and weight lifting. But at the age of 16 I learned of 2 budging discs as well as 2 fractures around my L4 and L5 vertebrae. The injury inevitably costed me my hopes of pursing football and wrestling collegiately. The irony behind the injury is that it was induced by too much work. My body was starting to fail me due to putting too much strain on it at a young age. But it's that type of behavior that defines Justin Dennis.
Not being the one to quit, I turned my focus to baseball, weightlifting and bodybuilding in college, and placed second at a regional bodybuilding and fitness competition. I've spent most of my time in the athletic but it was a literature course that changed my life.
During my senior year in college, I took a Holocaust literature course. As a Jewish man I already had a connection to the content of the class but I did not realize how moved one could be from words. It was at that point I asked myself, "how can I move people the way I was moved in that Holocaust course?"
The answer was acting. Not classically trained, I struggled with a way to break into entertainment. But I've always believed in the power of action, the power of working hard to build your dreams with your bare hands. So I started taking classes at Boston Casting in the very little spare time I had from my full time job. Through Boston Casting, I found my way into stand up comedy, and to my surprise, I was good at it. I played at clubs from Comedy Studio and The Comedy Den in Boston to The Comedy Connection in Providence, RI. I'll always thank stand up for giving me "the thick skin needed when dealing with casting directors and auditions."
After about a year of performing stand up, I decided to quit my full time job, and pick up a flexible job driving trucks and commit to acting full time, because I know, the weight of a dream is worth so much more than an ordinary full time job. Since then, I have been in nearly 20 productions ranging from student shorts to Indie features.
This is not the end of the story. This is just the beginning. I can't predict what is going to happen in the future, but I can guarantee you I'll work hard to pursue my dream, because this is how we built this country, the pursuit of the American Dream.