Talmadge on Acting

Posted by Raimundo Estela in Faculty

Multiple activities occur atop the big red stairs at the entrance of Greer Garson Studios: students rehearsing, professors giving lectures and a corkboard with different auditions for the alumni, all bathed with the distinct vermilion tone that embraces the hall. But there also is a single office on the right side that houses the man who pulls the strings of the performing art school: Victor Talmadge, the interim head chief.

Messy hair and casual clothes aren’t Talmadge’s only features. His passion for acting and performing arts are his biggest distinctive attributes along with a successful career that spans film, television and theater. It was this same love for the area and his interest of giving some of this passion back that led him to start teaching in 2008 at the College of Santa Fe, now Santa Fe University of Art and Design, where he is now occupying the spot that the previous head of the performing arts, John Weckesser, left when he retired after 40 years.

Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, Talmadge considers New York his real hometown. While growing up in the metropolis, he started performing in community theater where he discovered his love for acting and started earn praise for it.

“I continued to do acting at the same time I entered pre-med school and those two things really do not mix. Acting requires so much time and rehearsal and pre-med requires so much study. So I took a year off to travel and clear my mind and decided that I wanted to go ahead and get serious about my theater training, so I went to graduate school and got a master’s [degree in] fine arts,” says Talmadge.

“I was one of the lucky few people who was able for over 30 years to support myself acting. Getting paid to do what you love, to do art is like a drug addict getting a fix. It’s the best thing is the world,” he says. But being successful isn’t something that comes out of nowhere; some sacrifices must be made in order to become an accomplished actor, as Talmadge can attest. “I was married but didn’t have any kids. I think one of the reasons I was able to be as successful as I was, was because I was able to travel a lot and be away from my home a lot of my time. I’ve been on a tour that took me away for 16 months. If I had a family that would be very hard to do.”

Talmadge with members of the village of Agua Fria, as part of his documentary theater project “Water.” Photo by Luke Montavon

Now, as Talmadge oversees the Performing Arts Department, he’s trying to ensure his students will be better prepared so they can have the same luck as he did. To achieve this, the school is implementing the Complete Actor Program.

“It consists on switching the focus on the acting program from training actors only in theater into actors who will be trained not only in this area but film, television, voice overwork, commercials and webisodes. Hopefully we’re developing a program so actors when they graduate will have a vast area of expertise. This is a brand new vision that we’re going to star developing seriously in the fall.”

As both professor and interim chair, Talmadge wants the best for his students, constantly reminding them that this beautiful career requires passion, sacrifice and conviction, but it is worth it. “If I had a time machine I’d make the same decisions again.”