Brooklyn-born actor-turned-activist, Chris Bashinelli brought his lecture “Stories From the Stoop: From Brooklyn to the World with Chris Bashinelli” to Leffler Chapel and Performance Center on Thursday, Sept. 18. Bashinelli spoke about growing up in Brooklyn, becoming an actor and traveling abroad.
Bashinelli began his career with hopes of becoming an actor. “People told me that because I liked making people laugh and entertaining them that I should get up on stage and be an actor, so I listened,” Bashinelli said.
He continued, “I started acting in high school, and I did plays. I was having fun, and I was good at it, and I was becoming successful. I auditioned for one of the most prestigious acting schools in the state of New York and got a full scholarship. Before long, I landed an audition for ‘The Sopranos.’”
Bashinelli auditioned multiple times for the show and finally booked a role in one of the show’s final episodes.
“Acting is a career where you can pour yourself into your work for days, months, years and have nothing to show for it,” Bashinelli said. “I was about to throw in the towel.”
However, when he was filming his scene, Bashinelli asked advice from one of the actors when he confided he still did not feel completely fulfilled by his career. The fellow actor told him, “If you want to do something else, why don’t you just go out and try it,” and that is what he did.
“We have a decision maker inside all of us. What is logical on paper isn’t always what is right. Our gut combines with our heart, head and subconscious. That helps us make decisions. My gut has always told me to travel, but I ignored it to become an actor,” Bashinelli said.
Bashinelli researched study abroad programs in Africa and came up with two options: one was to travel to South Africa and have fun, the other was to travel to Tanzania. Bashinelli chose Tanzania because he believed it would be more fulfilling.
“I had the opportunity to travel across Tanzania, and when I was there, I saw a lot of beauty, but if you travel to a developing world, you’re going to see a lot of beauty, a lot of poverty, and you are also undoubtedly going to see a lot of hope,” Bashinelli said.
It was one five-minute encounter with a local villager that changed his way of thinking. Bashinelli asked the villager he wanted most out of life, and his response was “knowledge.” This villager’s words stick with Bashinelli to this day. “Isn’t it our responsibility to connect with others?” Bashinelli said, “I wanted to create a television show about my experience to show others.”
“I went from this amazing experience to the worst time of my life, because the day that I got back, I discovered that my father had cancer, and it wasn’t good. We were not sure what was going to happen,” Bashinelli said. “At 20, I came back from this amazing place, and I couldn’t describe to my friends the amazing experience that I had.”
Bashinelli then went on to do an array of jobs, but none that made him happy. He even went back to acting, but it still didn’t feel right.
“You don’t have to wait until you are at the bottom of the barrel to figure out who you want to be. Sometimes, it’s good to hit rock bottom, because then we know that something has to change,” Bashinelli said.
Bashinelli then took all the videos from his experience abroad and decided to make a documentary which has been shown at film festivals and has won numerous awards.
Bashinelli then informed the audience that those individuals who believe they could never do something like he did need to change their mindset from being concerned solely with their own well-being. Rather, they should consider the needs of others around them and place those needs on an equal or greater scale than their own.
“The only reason I am on this stage right now is because I want everyone in this room to be happy. I hope that you’ll see that the point of life, the point of traveling, is not to have fun, it’s wonderful to have fun, but there’s a very big difference between excitement and fulfillment,” Bashinelli said.
He continued, “So as you start your journey, as you start your path, think about, are you doing this for fun? Are you doing this for excitement? Or are you doing this for fulfillment? The point of travel is not only to explore the places that we are visiting, but to explore ourselves. And as you travel more and more, you’ll find more about how we are all related, and that’s what being a global citizen is all about.”
“Chris Bashinelli’s inspiring lecture helped me recognize the importance of global citizenship and how we are all interconnected. Since I plan on studying abroad next semester, it was a great chance to hear his experiences and views about world travel,” junior communications major Kaylin Russell said.
However, one of the most frequent reasons given to the Study Abroad Office as to why some students do not take the opportunity to study abroad is because those individuals are afraid they will miss something back at Etown.
Bashinelli responded, “We are going to miss stuff wherever we go, but I can guarantee you this; if you ask someone in study abroad if they regret their experience, I can almost guarantee you that nobody will say no. Everyone appreciates their experience. If you have that feeling that you are going to miss something back home and you have the opportunity to travel and you don’t, you are going to miss far more than if you stay.”
Bashinelli said, “When you care for others, they care for you, and that’s all you have to do to be a global citizen.”
