If you look at the early lives of the Hollywood actors we hear about all the time, you’ll notice a pattern. Most of them started living their lives differently from the rest of us from a young age. Larry Laverty is a perfect example.
Born in Berkeley, California and raised in nearby Oakland, Laverty was a gifted student in school, consistently at the top of his class. He made friends with everyone and was especially attracted to the kids in his classes who were different, those who came from poverty, those with European parents, and those with quiet voices.
By the time he attended Oakland’s renowned Skyline High School, whose many notable alumni include fellow actor Tom Hanks, Laverty had grown disenchanted with school, focusing more on sports and the outdoors. Despite his involvement in the Boy Scouts, becoming an Eagle Scout at a young age, writing for the school newspaper, playing music in a school jazz band, and participating in the school track team along with other sports, Laverty had spent almost as much time skipping school to be with other longhairs as he had attending classes. He just graduated with the rest of his high school class.
Without the necessary qualifications to get into UC Berkeley or Stanford, where his parents had attended school, he reinvented himself by moving to the family farm in Idaho, Kuna, Idaho. There, she immersed herself in rural life, commuting daily to the nearby big city for work and college. He earned two degrees from Boise State University, but more importantly, he worked every day to pay for his expenses. It was by doing these jobs that he planted the seeds of a career in acting.
Laverty held no fewer than ten different jobs growing up, from working in a dark factory to milking cows at a dairy. It was the challenge of mastering each new job that interested him, and despite being offered managerial careers at several of the companies he worked for, he kept going. Unable to feel good about dedicating his life to a career in the fields of his university degrees, he one day thought that he would try his hand at acting.
Now back in Oakland, California, Laverty began doing Shakespearean plays and Broadway musicals at the Woodminster Theater. He had found his calling. He went back to school to study acting. In the years that followed, she studied at San Francisco’s prestigious American Conservatory Theatre, the Jean Shelton Actors Lab, and with the noted improvisational groups Second City and The Groundlings.
At the same time, Laverty hadn’t given up on her love of sports, juggling her pursuit of an acting career with an eleven-year bid to make the US Olympic speed skating team. She lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in Calgary, Canada, and in Butte, Montana during these years, and although he failed to make it to the Olympics, he made lifelong friends in these cities and kept performing.
With his athletic years behind him, Laverty began working as an actor in Hollywood and began working regularly on television soon after. He appeared on iconic television shows like The Tonight Show and The Dating Game. He worked in several telenovelas, among them “Todos mis niños”, “Días de nuestra vida” and “Pasiones”. He worked on docu-dramas such as “Breaking Vegas”, “Unsolved Mysteries”, “Mysteries & Scandals” and “America’s Most Wanted”. And he was a guest star in the top-rated dramas “Judging Amy” and “The Practice.”
But Laverty had also appeared in a few independent films at the time and knew the satisfaction that came from working more collaboratively with directors and producers. So despite settling in Hollywood, he left Los Angeles to work on independent films across the country. One of his first films was a one-week contract in Gus Van Sant’s 2003 Cannes major film “Elephant.” Soon after came roles in the well-received horror film “The Hamiltons.” He worked alongside one of his childhood heroes, Rutger Hauer, on “Dead Tone.” And to date, he has appeared in leading or supporting roles in more than 100 films.
In keeping with his lifelong tendency to dominate jobs, Laverty approaches every role he plays the same way he approached every job he had when he was younger. Through his research and imagination, he literally becomes the characters he plays. In the process, he alters his appearance, his way of thinking and his way of speaking. You have to look really hard to recognize him in a lot of the characters that he plays.
There is a lesson for all of us to learn from watching the life of Larry Laverty. That is to say, there is much to learn by overcoming our own daily concerns and entering the lives of the people around us. By caring for and connecting with other people, we receive great rewards, including the many doors that can open along life’s journey.