Actor Skylar Astin spoke about his Jewish upbringing, spilled behind-the-scenes secrets from his “Pitch Perfect” days and gave advice to students pursuing a career in theatre at Hillel’s annual celebrity speaker event on Tuesday night.
The sold-out talk, put together by the Hillel celebrity speaker committee, began with a performance from ShireiNU, Northwestern’s Jewish a cappella group.
“The celebrity speaker event is a great opportunity to bring together the Jewish and not-Jewish members of the Northwestern community,” said Medill junior Madeleine Stern, the Hillel programming co-chair and celebrity speaker committee co-head. “We bring in a Jewish celebrity, and they tell us about their life, about their career, and a little bit about their Jewish identity.”
Astin spoke about his Jewish upbringing, consisting of color wars at sleepaway camp, a Dave Matthews Band-themed bar mitzvah and his mother’s matzo ball soup.
He also described his decision to drop his last name, ‘Lipstein,’ when he decided to further pursue theatre.
“You gotta lose the last name. It’s great, but it’s more versatile if your name is not specific to something,” said Astin, quoting his first agent.
Astin immersed himself in theatre growing up in New York, auditioning for anything he could find and pursuing a theatre degree at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, although he said NU was his first choice.
However, he was not at Tisch for long. During his freshman year, Astin originated a role in the now-hit Broadway musical “Spring Awakening.” Soon after, he picked up his first movie role in “Hamlet 2” and eventually went on to make the “Pitch Perfect” movies, which he is best known for.
Astin described the “Pitch Perfect” movie as “lightning in a bottle,” attributing the success of the movie to a great script and actors who were able to build on it. He also shared behind-the-scenes secrets with the audience.
“Adam and Rebel’s love story, especially in the first movie, was not on paper,” Astin said, referencing the onscreen relationship between the characters Bumper and Fat Amy.
Many of the actors were allowed to improvise parts of scenes that were later incorporated into the movie, he said. The ensemble work in the movie helped inspire the improvisation because it allowed them to work off one another in scenes, Astin said.
Astin ended his talk by taking questions from the audience, many of which asked for his advice on pursuing theatre and inquired more about his role in Pitch Perfect.
Weinberg freshman and ShereiNU member Naomi Ko said she was most affected by his advice that an actor learns more by playing a smaller role than a bigger one.
“I felt like that was a good bit of advice because I’ve done productions where I’ve had small roles, and I think it helped me learn more about myself,” Ko said.
Another question of the talk inquired about the validity of something many NU tour guides claim as they walk through campus: Was “Pitch Perfect” based on Northwestern?
Although Astin said that he believed the film was inspired by the overall collegiate a capella scene and the book by Mickey Rapkin, he also acknowledged that the director Jason Moore attending NU may have influenced the film.
“In that way, I think it actually had a lot to do with this university,” Astin said, “Maybe that’s how Northwestern edges out other universities.”
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Email: [email protected],
X: @Chrisyjlin
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