Get to know New York’s Franklin Livingston and some of his American actor and influencer achievements: Thank you so much for joining us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path? Living in the Midwest of the United States for nearly a decade made me feel that I was expected to spend my life in a specific stereotypical way. It began with my job at the local Christian church that helped me get settled in the U.S. I was astonished when my supervisor asked me why I needed to go out and have a nice dinner, once in a while, when I had tin can soups at the place I was living at. The senior pastor of the same church explained to me that people from my background should NOT even consider dating or having a family life because we don’t understand relationships and people from the Middle East could die at any given moment. In my opinion, they were basically stating that my life and people like me should not expect to progress any further than just being sacrificial lambs. We are not entitled to normal lives and should never experience it. We are less than the standard and lucky to participate at all. Read even more details at Franklin Livingston.
Where does Franklin Livingston’s possibility personality come in? It is after a long unfruitful wait that Franklin has decided enough is enough! Franklin is now producing content intending to provide grass-root level casts and crew members opportunities to work making films. In the past five years or so, through his Theatre and Film production companies in New York and Los Angeles, Franklin has shown hope in the Hollywood industry by giving out jobs and chances to thousands of upcoming American actors and crew members in major cities to showcase their work to the global audience.
Franklin Livingston grew up as a religious minority in Pakistan. He constantly faced persecution and prejudice, which shaped him to be a unique human being. He is a wounded healer — someone who embraces the people from all walks of life, empowering them to be whoever they want. Like Pakistan, in the United States, Franklin is once again a minority. But this time, it is not because of his religious affiliation but his ethnicity, where he has experienced terrible racism and discrimination on all levels. Livingston utilizes these experiences to evolve into a humanitarian advocate, share his struggles, and much more through his films, plays, and social media content.
Please tell us the one thing that separates you from your competition. I do have a unique perspective to bring to the table. Currently, there is no person of Pakistani origin in Hollywood’s big-budget movies or TV networks that has the training I do. Especially not one playing a dramatic role that will be taken seriously and not a funny guy character. I would love to put my extensive experience to good use and not only go up against the competition for a leading serious role one of these days, but actually get a call back for it!
Especially in our current time — I believe that the utmost importance should be placed on awareness and empathy. My travels, experiences, and interactions have shown me that mainstream American Media and Art are just not illustrating the true human social condition and political climate we have been facing. The teams working with my companies are producing relentlessly to eliminate that void and fill it with compassion, enlightenment, and masterful storytelling.
Even still, most of these actors tend to be from India or other southeast Asian countries and not from Pakistan. Although Pakistan and India share some commonalities, their culture, language, human behaviors, and social etiquette make them distinctly different nations, which Hollywood has yet to present in its productions. This difference is not in contrast to those that the British and Americans have in terms of their anthropology. Countless people of color in the United States and a significant community of Pakistani immigrants in the United States have waited long to see themselves in Hollywood movies and television shows with a true representation. Franklin Livingston is ready to face this challenge, and that day is not far away when Franklin will tell stories about Pakistani Americans through his inimitable work in films and television.
What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? I have so many projects in the works right now, but my current favorite in post-production is “Down-Range” in which I played a U.S. Army major. There are a lot of officers in the U.S. military of Middle Eastern descent. However, in Hollywood movies and American TV shows all war heroes tend to be portrayed as Caucasian and the villains are people of color. I am shocked that even in our current time, TV has kept this tradition by producing a popular series “Jack Ryan” in which this outdated stigma is perpetuated.
For these reasons, Franklin felt the urge to do something. As a community builder, Franklin not only looks out for himself; instead, he works out situations for the best interest of others, as he did for the young and upcoming American actors locate in the greater New York area. In summary, Franklin turns possibilities into reality. Franklin Livingston teaches us that even though there are possibilities in everything we yearn for; Nothing good comes out without challenges. There are possibilities all around you; plan and put them into action.
