Daily Inspiration: Meet Kyle Harris

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kyle Harris.

Hi Kyle, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers.
Oh my gosh, where to start? My story is a pretty wild ride, so I hope you’re ready.

My name is Kyle Harris and I’m an actor based in Nashville, TN. I was born in Fort Worth, TX, and raised in Russellville, AR. I moved to Nashville in 2019 after spending 6 years in Las Vegas, NV. We’ll get to that.

Growing up, I was a very shy kid so it shocked my parents when I told them I wanted to be an actor. I was probably 11 or 12 years old when I saw Shia Labeouf on TV as Louis Stevens in the Disney Channel shows Even Stevens. I remember watching him on TV and telling my parents “THAT is what I want to do for the rest of my life!” Growing up in a small town, most people didn’t really know much about the entertainment industry or what being an actor entailed and one thing was for sure, my family was NOT moving to Los Angeles. My parents did a good job of letting me “get it out of my system” and never really acknowledged it any further.

A couple of years later when I got into high school, the acting bug came back. I don’t know that it ever really left to be honest. I did ok in school, but when I should’ve been doing school work or paying attention in class I was researching talent agencies, how to submit to them, and who my favorite actors were represented by. I was looking for every bit of information I could find so I could break into the entertainment industry. I wanted it so bad. My parents encouraged me to join high school theater but the younger me was not about it. I was dead set on graduating and moving to LA to make it big. Boy was I naive. During my research, I found a talent agency and acting school in Little Rock which is about an hour away from Russellville and I BEGGED my parents to let me go to it. They told me if I really wanted to attend I had to pay for it myself and that’s what I did. That summer I got a job at the local Italian Restaurant and I also went door to door asking people to let me mow their yards. That summer I made enough to attend acting school and that fall my mom would drive me to Little Rock every week. I was on my way… or so I thought. The owners of the school kept trying to sell me on this big acting showcase called IMTA in LA and NY and it was $10,000 and they said I had to go if I wanted to be signed to their agency. Later I learned that this school was a scam. I was crushed.

in 2009 I graduated high school and attended Middle Tennessee State University for the music business. I was mostly going to school because my parents wanted me to. I know many of you know what that’s like. Don’t want to disappoint mom and dad. Before I started my first semester of college my parents took me to a doctor and I was tested for ADD and ADHD. Apparently, I had trouble focusing, and I was prescribed Vyvanse. To this day I think I was misdiagnosed because it made me feel like a zombie. I wasn’t attending class because I didn’t want to get out of bed, I was going to school because my parents wanted me to, I was just unhappy. Though I wasn’t diagnosed, I really do think I fell into depression. I ended up dropping out and moving back home to Arkansas to recoup. I got a job, tried school again once more, and then in 2011 decided to move to Dallas, TX.

At this point in my life, I was 21 and feeling lost. Dallas was my way of getting out of my hometown (again). It wasn’t LA but it was close to home and felt like a good next step. Becoming an actor seemed so far out of reach, I felt like I had disappointed everyone around me and I was still trying to figure myself out. I spent a year in Dallas working two jobs at the Galleria Mall and during that time I found Twitter.

This is where it all starts to change for me.

Between 2011 and the end of 2012 I had grown a pretty large Twitter following. I don’t know how or why but I was becoming kind of Twitter famous. Within a year I had amassed 10k followers just for tweeting. I still don’t understand it. Everything changed for me in December 2012. This girl I had been following for a while DM’d me and we began talking. DM’s turned into text messages, to FaceTime, and before I knew it, I was on a plane with all my stuff moving to Las Vegas, NV. I was moving to the entertainment capital of the world, I had a girlfriend, we had our own place with the help of her parents and brother I was SET.

In early 2013 I discovered a little app called Vine and I began posting videos. 10 followers turned to 100. 100 turned to 10,000 and before I knew it I had amassed over 150,000 on Vine. This was awesome because at the time I still wanted to be an actor but with Vine, I was able to make my own content and have it distributed to hundreds of thousands of people. It was everything I could’ve asked for. I was getting asked to make content for brands and getting paid more money than I had ever seen in my entire life. It was life-changing. Later that year I asked my girlfriend to marry me and in 2015 we got married in her hometown of Long Island, NY. It doesn’t stop there. Enter Twitter. They caught wind of our story. A couple meets on Twitter, the guy moves from Arkansas to Vegas to be with her and now we’re going to Livestream our wedding on Periscope so our friends and family who couldn’t make it could be there digitally. Twitter loved that. On our wedding day, I got a DM on Instagram from a producer at Good Morning America. I didn’t believe it at first but it was legit and they showed up to the wedding along with Huffington Post. We made internet history as the first couple to Livestream our wedding on a social media platform.

Because of the amount of press our wedding received, we were both verified on Twitter and our followers skyrocketed. I was able to use this attention to my advantage. I started my own social media agency managing accounts of brands, celebrities, and small businesses in Las Vegas. Jon Taffer, the Bar Rescue guy was my first and longest-running client.

Over the next couple of years, I built my business, we were traveling, and all of the sudden my world came crumbling down again. She and I ended up splitting up in 2018 and our divorce was finalized in 2019. I moved back home to Arkansas again. I felt defeated. I had it all and then as soon as I got it, it was gone and I could not escape Arkansas. I felt like I was never getting out.

In July of 2019, my dad, then the mayor of my hometown took a trip to Franklin, TN, and I went with him. We spend some time in Nashville and I realized because of Vine I had some friends that lived there. We met up that weekend and before I knew it they had convinced me to make the move to Nashville. In August I made the move.

I began working at Pinewood Social where my friend Corey, the one who had convinced me to move to Nashville, worked. He was a fellow Viner and also AN ACTOR. The dream was alive again. I probably annoyed him with how many questions I was asking him about the Nashville film scene, how to break into it, who the agents were in town, and where people trained. I got all the information I needed and did whatever I could to try and get my foot in the door. It wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. More time passed and we decided we wanted to move to LA so in January 2020 we made the decision we were going to make the move. We spent about a month and a half researching apartments, applying for jobs, and making sure we were set up to make it out west but in March of 2020 East Nashville was devastated by the tornado. Our plans were on hold. Not even two weeks later, the entire world was on hold because of COVID-19.

My dream of being an actor… my dream of moving to LA… DESTROYED. The world was shut down and nobody knew how long we were going to be in this really unfortunate situation. At the time we had already paid for a long-term Airbnb in West Hollywood and we couldn’t get our money back so in April we decided to go ahead and make the move to LA. Luckily for us, fate would have it that we were able to stay out there. Los Angeles was a ghost town, but we made it.

I know the world being shut down was pretty traumatic for a lot of people, but for me, it was probably the biggest turning point in my life. I had time to work on myself, get healthy, get my mind right, and truly focus on what I wanted to do with my life. That summer I found an acting coach named Anthony Meindl who was hosting zoom classes for $80 a month. hundreds of dollars cheaper than what he normally charged because no one was working and we couldn’t meet in person. This was pivotal for me because I was getting real training from a renowned acting coach IN Los Angeles. As the world began to slowly open up I had my first professional headshots done and I began to seek representation. The summer and Fall of 2020 in LA were unforgettable times in my life. Hiking up to the Hollywood sign, meeting influential people in LA, living in a mansion at the foot of the Hollywood Hills I can describe it and it doesn’t seem real but it was life-changing for me. At the end of 202o, I moved back to Nashville reenergized and ready to take on the world. The world was slowly opening back up and I was ready to GO!

In January of 2021, I submitted my headshots and resume to McCray Agency, Nashville’s premiere talent agency and two weeks later I was signed! I had an agent! Before I knew it my inbox was flooded with auditions. I began taking acting classes in Nashville at 4th Wall Acting Studio and in September of 2021 I was on set for my first short film as a lead. 2021 was a major year for me because my dream of being an actor was coming to life.

2022 has been my best year yet. I can now call myself a working actor. I got a role in another short film, then a web series, then a music video, another music video, and then it happened. I booked a national commercial for ESPN. HUGE. I booked a lead in a national commercial opposite ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit. I couldn’t believe it. When I saw the commercial on TV that was my “made it” moment. I realized I was doing what I set out to do.

Since then I have had 11 projects under my belt this year including a Netflix show directed by Regina King and a feature film coming out next year!

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
HA! No way. It has definitely not been a smooth road. Life got in the way, COVID-19, divorce, and so many things that could go wrong, but in hindsight all of that needed to happen. It gave me life experience, it helped shape my view of success, the world, and what was important to me.

I know it sounds crazy to say this, but I’m actually thankful for the downtime we had during the pandemic. It allowed me to have a creative breakthrough. I was able to set my sights on what I wanted, get to know myself even more, and adjust my priorities. I focused on my physical and mental health and really set myself up for success.

I would not be where I am now had it not been for the pandemic. I truly believe that.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I am an actor! I’m represented by McCray Agency and I train with Laura Holloway at The Studio for Acting in Nashville. Over the past year, I’ve been fortunate enough to have worked on 11 projects including a web series, TV, a couple of short films, a national commercial, two music videos, and most recently a feature film called Child of Love!

I’m proud of all the work I’ve done. Each project is different but I’ve learned so many different things on each set. I’ve been fortunate enough to work with a ton of amazing Nashville creatives as well as Academy Award Winning actors like Regina King. This has been the coolest year of my life and I cannot wait to see what 2023 holds.

I’m also super proud to be a student of Laura Holloway at The Studio for Acting. Laura is a working actor and coach and she truly cares about actors and the film community in Nashville. I’ve become a much better actor having trained with her and I’m so proud of my personal and professional growth.

What sets me apart from others? I think that’s a tricky question because every actor is on their own journey. I am grateful I get to do this but I don’t think I can in good conscious say there’s anything that sets me apart. Maybe my drive, my motivation, and my goals, but everyone else is set apart in their own way. The Nashville film community is moving forward together but on our own journeys!

What would you say has been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
The biggest lesson I’ve learned is to stop comparing myself to others and stay in my lane. Comparison is the killer of all joy. Everyone is on their own journey and my journey is the only one I should be worried about.

Instagram, and Facebook… make it very easy to get discouraged when you see the same people booking over and over so you have to tune that out. I’ve muted several people on Instagram including my agent (sorry Kim!) for my own mental health so I can focus on my own career. I find I’ve been able to focus and play by my own rules because I have my own goals.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://instagram.com/hikyleharris
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/realkyleharris
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/hikyleharris
• Other: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4500441/

Image Credits
Annelise Loughead and John David Pittman