Rising Star Luke Judy On The Five Things You Need To Shine In The Entertainment Industry
It’s okay if you mess up, and everyone makes mistakes.
When I was younger, I was always worried I would mess up a line in the casting room. It took me a while to realize that it is okay if you fumble as long as you did your best working on the script and preparing. Ideally you don’t want to mess up, but if you do just keep the scene going. It’s how you handle a mistake that really shows them how much of a pro you are. I was in a callback once with a ton of the people in the casting room. I had a big paragraph, a mini monologue. I completely spaced out and messed up the lines. I stopped, apologized, asked to restart and if I could take a moment. They all thought I was adorable because of how serious I was taking the audition and that I asked for a moment. They allowed me to gather my thoughts. We did another take; all my nerves were gone because in my mind the worst had already happened. I didn’t mess up that time and my reps got good feedback. I realized that day that it is not how perfect you get the lines but how you handle the recovery and keep the scene going that shows if you can handle booking a job.
As a part of my series about pop culture’s rising stars, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Luke Judy.
Luke Judy is best known for his recurring regular role on Fresh Off the Boat alongside Randall Park and Constance Wu. Other notable Television credits include guest starring roles on Evil with Katja Herbers, 9–1–1 with Peter Krause and Angela Bassett, Teachers with Haley Joel Osment and The Vampire Diaries with Ian Somerhalder and Kat Graham. Since his start in commercials Luke has been working constantly amassing quite the resume including a role in Universal Pictures blockbuster action movie Pacific Rim: Uprising with Scott Eastwood and Charlie Day. Some of his favorite film roles, however, are the ones when he works alongside his sister Savannah Judy. Together they have appeared in five hit films such as Christmas with the Andersons with George Stults and Christy Carlson Romano, A Soldier’s Revenge with Val Kilmer, Special Unit with Christopher Titus, and the award-winning film Bombshell in which he played Nicole Kidman’s son. In addition to their film work, these talented siblings play gigs all over LA as lead singers in their own band. Passionate about giving back, Luke supports animal charities as well as St. Jude. When not working, he enjoys listening to music, playing video games, and hanging out with his friends. — -
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?
The story of my growing up is that I was Born in Daytona Beach Florida in the same hospital as my mom and sister. We lived in the greater Daytona beach area until I was 6 years old when we came out to Los Angeles because of acting opportunities. We came out to LA planning for it to be temporary, a few months max. Little did we know that I would sign with amazing reps and work constantly until the pandemic. It has been an exciting journey and one I am so glad my parents took the chance on!
Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?
The first thing that started me on this career path is that my parent’s own salons in Florida and when I was around 5 years old, one of my mom’s long-time clients came in and during her appt told her that her kids got some modeling pictures for fun and suggested that we did the same. My mom told us about the suggestion and my sister and I wanted to do it, since it sounded so fun. We went to the same photographer our friends went to and had our first session of headshots. When we got back the photos, we were excited to see that they came out really good, so much so that the photographer encouraged us to get a local agent. After booking the first few auditions I went on, I started getting interest from a bi-coastal agent who told my parents I needed to go to LA. We went to LA on our family vacation and met with some reps and acting coaches while we were here. The trip paid off because we signed with our managers and the rest is history. This was 10 years ago this year!
Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your entertainment career?
One of my most interesting stories that has happened to me since I began my career is from a day when my sister and I were playing siblings and filming a western called ‘A Soldiers Revenge’. Val Kilmer played our grandfather. We were so excited to work with him on the western because he is in one of the best westerns ever made! It was amazing to act alongside him, he was so kind, funny and amazing to watch him act! He was very nice to everybody, every chance he could he cracked jokes. Working with him was such a great experience. We got to ride horses with him, shoot (fake) guns and have an amazing day. At the end of the day, he took pictures with all the cast and crew and everyone was so excited he was there.
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
The funniest story of a mistake we made was many years ago, in our first few months of living in LA. We were heading to an audition. We always like to be early for auditions. We left our house like we always do, giving at least an hour to get there because LA traffic is hard to predict. We arrived at the casting office and the cars clock said that we were an hour and fifteen minutes early. We breathed a sigh of relief. We sat back, listening to music, trying to relax a little before we went in. Then, we got a call from our manager asking us where we were and that we were late, 45 minutes late! We couldn’t believe it, what happened? We look at the phone’s time and the car’s clock and realize that the car’s clock was still set to daylight savings time. So, the lesson I learned that day is to always make sure all your clocks are correct and change them when the time changes, and always do everything you can to be early.
What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? How do you think that might help people?
The most interesting project I’m working on right now is a duo that my sister and I formed called ‘Duplexity’. We are an alternative-indie music duo. We are currently working on original music, both in the studio and at home in our free time. We have been singing since we were very little. It started with vocal lessons from a family friend in Florida, before acting was ever a thought. When we moved to LA we added instruments and our love for music grew. We still take weekly vocal lessons and are so excited to share our music with the world! Our biggest hope for our band is to be a positive influence on kids everywhere. It’s been a rough few years and the kids were really effected. We always try to be positive in our daily life. We hope to spread positivity and do our best to make the world a better place. Even if just a little!
Most young people your age don’t have to balance work and school. Can you tell us how you manage to balance your schoolwork, auditions, and time on set?
Balancing being a working kid and going to school is one of the toughest parts of being an actor. I think my parents really tried to give us as much of a normal school experience as possible. The biggest challenge for me was when I was in school and auditioning a lot. It’s hard when you have multiple auditions and homework. Because it was so challenging, each year my parents would take us out of in person school when pilot season started, and we would do a California Online Charter school. This type of school is not as time demanding, which makes it less challenging when it comes to balancing acting and schoolwork. When pilot season ended my parents would put us back in school to finish the school year. When you’re working on set it’s easier to balance work and school work because production has a required number of hours worked in the schedule every day that the actor works. During the pandemic when the industry slowed down, I had a lot of free time. I started focusing more on school and enrolled in college classes for my high school credits. I was determined to graduate early and get college credit early. Now I graduated from school at 16 with 23 college credits toward my AA. I have a lot more time to focus on my current and future projects!
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
I will always be most grateful for my parents; they have always been so supportive of both my sister and I. It is very true that I never could have been an actor or dreamed of any success without my parents helping me every step. Because of them I am who I am today. Not only do they help me on my professional journey, but they also support me in every aspect of my life. If they never would have taken the chance and came out to LA, I would never had had any of the amazing opportunities and experiences I have been so lucky to have. I really look up to them because they are such hard workers, we get our strong work ethic from them. My mom is a hairdresser so when we get auditions my mom always does our hair and picks out our clothes. My dad always drives us to our acting classes and auditions. They have also been helping us so much with our duo. They’ve always been there for us, and I am very grateful to them.
Ok, thank you for all that. Now let’s jump to the main part of our interview. What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)
1 . Practice singing every day because when I get older, I would be thankful for the skill, and it would open more doors for me.
When I was starting out, I always thought that acting was more important than singing. I didn’t understand that when you are an actor you will get twice as many opportunities if you are a good singer. What I wish I knew was, singing is just as important as acting and practicing both equally. I’ve always taken singing lessons my whole life, but I never worked as hard as I should have. One time I had a live gig where I had to sing a song that was way too high for me and out of my range. I was straining my voice the whole time and halfway through the song I blew my voice out and couldn’t sing anymore. I was so embarrassed because I was just standing there rubbing my throat. Everyone cheered and loved it because I was a cute little kid who was up on stage, but I knew I could’ve done better if I had practiced more. This is when I started taking singing as seriously as acting.
2 .The casting directors want you to book the job too, they are not there to judge you!
When I was younger, I was so scared of what the casting directors would think of my audition. I didn’t realize then that not only are casting directors people too, but they are rooting for you… and they want you to book the job. There is this one casting director that I love. He called me in for an audition where the whole audition was improv. I walked in ready to start and he said oh this can wait, all he wanted to talk about was a recent project that I worked on. He said I couldn’t wait to bring you in and talk about it. He was telling me how much he loved watching me on that show, what a good job I did and how he couldn’t wait to see me on more stuff. That’s the day I realized that casting directors are some of the biggest supporters of actors and you shouldn’t be scared of them. I am so thankful for all the casting director relationships that I have built throughout the years, and I can’t wait to build new ones!
3 . ALWAYS verify that u have the right script for your audition.
On my first pilot audition I walked in, the Casting director started recording and on the first line that the casting director said I knew something was wrong. I panicked because the script I learned did not start with the line he just said. I explained that the first line I was expecting was different. He looked at my script and told me that I had the wrong script. Somehow, we mixed up the script. He took me to the waiting room and took me and my dad in the hall and explained to him that we had the wrong script. He was very nice and let us return the next day to audition again. We still to this day can’t figure out how we made the mistake.
4 . Always have an audition kit with you in your car for last minute auditions.
One day in the very beginning we didn’t have any auditions, so we were at the park playing after school. We got a call from our manager saying that we got a request for a same day audition and asked if we could get there asap. The audition was kind of far away on the other side of the city. We read the breakdown and it said the character was preppy and dressed nicely. My mom knew I really needed to change my clothes to match the wardrobe, but we didn’t have enough time to run home to change and grab a headshot/resume. If we did, we would never make it in time for the audition. My mom thought of going to the Old Navy that was nearby. We drove there and bought a button-up shirt, it was perfect. While we were in the store my dad ran to Rite Aid around the corner to print a headshot and resume. We arrived on time for the audition. From that day on we had a full audition kit in our trunk with a couple shirts for each of us, headshot/resumes and hairspray… just in case.
5 . It’s okay if you mess up, and everyone makes mistakes.
When I was younger, I was always worried I would mess up a line in the casting room. It took me a while to realize that it is okay if you fumble as long as you did your best working on the script and preparing. Ideally you don’t want to mess up, but if you do just keep the scene going. It’s how you handle a mistake that really shows them how much of a pro you are. I was in a callback once with a ton of the people in the casting room. I had a big paragraph, a mini monologue. I completely spaced out and messed up the lines. I stopped, apologized, asked to restart and if I could take a moment. They all thought I was adorable because of how serious I was taking the audition and that I asked for a moment. They allowed me to gather my thoughts. We did another take; all my nerves were gone because in my mind the worst had already happened. I didn’t mess up that time and my reps got good feedback. I realized that day that it is not how perfect you get the lines but how you handle the recovery and keep the scene going that shows if you can handle booking a job.
You are a person of enormous influence. How do you think you can use social media as a platform to be a positive influence to your fans, and for society at large?
I think if I can use social media to be a positive influence on anyone it will be in my efforts to spread the word that being healthy is the way to go! If I can be a positive role model by being anti-drugs and spreading the word that being clean is awesome. From birth until I was about 10, I struggled with health issues. I was always so skinny that my friends would always ask me why I was so skinny. I would get all of the sick kid auditions and other skinny kid auditions. Once I started feeling better it became very important to me to be healthy. I started learning from my mom what I can do in my life to make sure I always stay healthy. She taught me that everything you put in your body has an effect and that I need to be very careful my whole life what I put in my body. This made me realize that I already am fighting stuff with my health, and I don’t need any bad substances to make my health worse. I am not the sick kid anymore, but I never want to put any harmful substances in my body because I never want to be unhealthy again! I really look up to and admire Dee Snider because he is a musician and anti-drugs. He always promoted being healthy and clean. I really want to be like him in that way. He is the kind of role model with the positive influence that I aspire to be. I love his music and music videos; he is such an awesome entertainer.
If you had the ability to choose to work on any TV show or film, or work alongside any co-star, or with any director, what or who would that be, and why? You never know who might see this article, especially if we tag them. :-)
If I had the opportunity to choose to work on a project with anyone, I would have to say It would be my favorite actor, Brad Pitt. I have so many idols when it comes to acting but he is my number 1. You can really tell that he puts so much time and effort into preparing the characters he plays. Every movie of his that I watch I forget it’s a movie, I always think I am watching the character he is playing. He is so committed to each role you forget that it’s Brad Pitt! I am always so impressed with him every time, in any project. It doesn’t matter if it is comedy, drama or animated, he is the best! It would be so awesome to work with him, a dream come true! I cannot even begin to imagine how much I would learn acting alongside him. He is someone who has inspired me since the beginning. It would also just be so cool to meet my idol!
How can our readers follow you on social media?
@Thelukejudy on Instagram
@Thelukejudy on Tik Tok
@Thelukejudy on twitter
This was very meaningful, thank you so much!
