Zuri Starks

Zuri Starks is an actor and a new filmmaker. She has an extensive training background, from Meisner Technique to classical to movement training within acting and yoga. Beginning her training in Chicago at 15 years old to getting her B.A. at the University of Iowa, to many classes in LA (especially at AMAW), and to training in London, it's safe to say she has a curiosity and love for learning and exploring the craft. Although she started on the stage, she has crossed over into the tv/film world. Zuri has graced our screens in Chicago Fire, This Is Us, Days of Our Lives and other shows. Along with many short films, feature films, and commercials. In 2022 she checked off a bucket list box of being in a period piece, the film Rustin with director George C. Wolfe and Golden Globes Nominee Colman Domingo. Her line was cut, but if you glimpse close you can still see her face, show biz right? As she begins her teaching journey at AMAW LA, she aims to bring her experience and love for exploring to all the actors she encounters with a focus on body connection, voice, and deep understanding of the stories they tell. WHY DID YOU BECOME AN ACTOR? I decided to become an actor years after I fell in love with the first play I remember seeing, Miracle on 34th Street in Chicago. It was back when McDonald's had 59 cents cheeseburgers. I was mesmerized by the child actor and the feeling of a live performance. I was in awe and wonder of how powerful I felt she was to have a room full of mostly adults listen to her and understand her. From then on I was a performer, but at the time, mostly through athletics. It wasn't until I took my first acting class at 14 that I understood and felt that same rush I felt when I was 9 years old at that play. It was like I had started to uncover the voice I was timid of, and started understanding my emotions, and the power of storytelling. How that community was more welcoming and giving than most I had been a part of. It was watching my peers transform in front of me through their characters and then noticing my own transformations. And the amount of joy it brought me. Also how challenging I found it to be and still find it to be, but in ways that make me want to keep learning and evolving. Then realizing the power of storytelling. That my favorite movies and plays and books were filled with stories that made me cry, laugh, angry, feel seen and heard in ways I didn't even know I needed yet. That's what I wanted to do for a kid out there like me who felt very alone and misunderstood, but didn't know how to explain it.