Acting is a profession many might dream of for their future. However, freshman Shayla Eslampour is chasing these dreams at a young age. Eslampour, being an accomplished actress,  shows that talent has no age requirement. Her hard work and dedication turned into a passion for acting as well as a possible career.

From a young age she’s had to deal with a busy lifestyle, but her love for acting has served as her motivation. This motivation along with some training earned her an agent and some jobs to begin her acting career.

“I started acting, when I was about 9 and a half so I was constantly driving up to LA almost every day of the week doing classes and training workshops, “ freshman Shayla Eslampour said. “Then I got an agent and I’ve been booking films and commercials ever since then.”

With acting, comes great sacrifices in social time and school. But Eslampour has proven she is able to handle it all.

“To balance school and acting, it’s really hard; because I am a straight A student but I also have to be working on my acting material even if I haven’t done a film in the past month,” Eslampour said.

Even though maintaining this balance is hard, Eslampour still gets to do fun things and have new, exciting experiences.

“My favorite memory was actually a recent commercial I did. It was for instagram,” Eslampour said. “Instagram came out with a new live feature and I went to audition and I booked the job for the main role to show and advertise Instagram livestreaming.”

In addition to this, Eslampour has gotten to have other opportunities and meet new people. While some may dream of meeting famous actors, she has had these incredible experiences.

“When I was about 12 and a half I presented an award to Robert Di Niro at the Hall of Fame,” Eslampour said. “I was apart of the Shakespeare Charity program… then they asked me to go present an award and I wrote a speech, presented it, and it was really nerve-racking.”

Not only is it apparent that Eslampour has a passion for acting, but her friends know as well how hard she works for her goals no matter what struggles she may face.

“She works hard no matter what people say even if they try and push her down, and that goes for everything that she wants to do, but with acting I’d say she’s particularly passionate,” freshman Catherine Allen said.

For anyone who wants to start acting Eslampour suggests hard work and determination to chase you dreams.

“A big thing is to just stick to it,” Eslampour said. “You’re going to get rejected a bunch of times at first because that’s the way the acting industry is, but then after a while you get the hang of it.”