Interviewing actor Joshua Schroeder

1-. How was your childhood? 

My childhood, my childhood had its ups and downs.

I only have very few memories of my father and those memories are very small, everything else in terms of my father was broken promises. I always wanted a dad, to the point I would pay attention to all the men in crowds when in public to see if I could spot him and I always wondered why he was never there, every now and then there would be a phone call where he would say he would come and visit but nothing ever came of it.

My mother went through some extremely abusive relationships that put my mother through a lot and my brother and I witnessed.

Don’t get me wrong, there was some good moments but there was a lot of trauma and most of the time there was no understanding of where home is or at some points even what a home was.

The amount of times we moved, I made friends only to leave not long after and never see them again.

My grandmother was my rock through all the hardship’s of my younger years.

Through my teens I had lots of ups and downs with popularity and friends, getting involved with the wrong crowds doing a lot of things I should not have been doing.

Without diving to deep into details the best I can say is most of my teenage years, I am not proud of but all in all, without everything I have witnessed and been through I would most definitely not be the man I am today.

2-. From what age did you decide to be an actor and filmmaker and how did you know you had the skills to go on TV? 

Now, through all the trauma of my younger years I would often end up at my grandmothers house with my brother and my grandmother would put a VCR on for me which by my request was either Rambo or Bloodsport.

Watching these two films with these muscled up action hero’s got me hooked, I remember before I even started kindergarten I was watching these movies and immediately said, I wanted to become an actor and be an action hero with my own franchise like Rambo before I even started school and I wish I would have gotten into it when I was that young but life has its own plans and the way I have learnt to look at it is that I had to go through some things in life and gain a lot of experiences along the way that may help me in my acting career when it takes off.

3-. Did your parents support you in the decision you made to be an actor? 

Yes, I came forward in 2017 after meeting Chris Hemsworth and having just a plain conversation with him whilst watching our kids do jiu jitsu, I had no idea how to get into it and this was the first time since I was maybe 5 or 6 years old that that I really said it out loud, there was quite a few people that I told and got shut down straight away, told I was to old to get into it, I was told things like that doesn’t happen to nobody’s such as myself.

I didn’t listen though, I knew what I wanted to do, a good friend of mine told me about an acting school in Byron, I joined immediately and met my coach and mentor, director Mark Piper.

Mark showed me the ropes, gave me plenty of lessons and brought me out of my comfort zone.

As soon as I joined the acting class I joined starnow and two weeks later I had my first agent and got put forward for some extra work straight away.

From there my mother supported me but my biggest supporter of all, the one person who believed in me the entire time and said she believed I was guaranteed to make it was my grandmother.

The day I get up on stage at the golden globes will be the moment I will shed a tear and look to the heavens above knowing she’s watching down on me with a huge smile and full of pride and that will be an amazing moment for me.

4-. What was your first appearance on the screens? 

I have done a bit of extra work at the start of my career, I haven’t watched any of the productions that I was on though there is a couple of Australian television series such as Harrow.

I’ve been also featured in a few film festivals in short films as well as a few film clips as well.

5-. What was the role you liked the most? 

This is a tough one, honestly I don’t know, as I haven’t had the pleasure of shooting any major productions yet, most of my favourites come from short films and film clips, I recently shot a short film still yet to be released as it’s currently in post production.

I co-wrote the short film, it’s about men’s mental health, that one would have to be probably my favourite yet though I am working on another project at the moment which I co-wrote with my jiu jitsu instructor back in 2020 as a short film now looking to pitch it as a limited television series, obviously auditioning for other projects through my management though once this is completed and if the pitch is accepted then this may just be one of my favourite projects I may ever shoot not just for the story but there is also a lot of sentimental meaning and sentimental aspects thrown into it.

Now, in saying all that, in 2022 I played a role in a theatre production for a local theatre company called Byron Youth Theatre ( BYT ).

Now that taught me a lot and was an amazing experience, I gotta say, that production titled “ loves me, loves me not “ about the wheel of consent would have to be one of my favourite productions as well.

6-. What do you think led you to Fame? 

I ain’t yet as famous as I plan to be though I have seemed to have gained a lot of attention from a lot of people with in the film industry plus other industries that may also help out in the long run as well, I think it comes down to my look a lot.

7-. What types of characters you would like to interpret? 

Well, I mean, playing a superhero would be an amazing opportunity, maybe a live action adaptation of dragon ball z or Pokémon or something similar would be an awesome opportunity and I mean, 007 himself, James Bond would be amazing.

Now in saying all of this I would love to simply have my own thing, just as Sylvester Stallone has Rambo and Rocky, Tom Cruise has mission impossible, I would love to have something like that for myself, create an iconic character, there are some pretty awesome series of novels out there with some pretty epic characters written up that I would love to portray.

Obviously I love that action genre but I would also love to portray characters that can impact people emotions, take films such as the notebook and the longest ride for example, something like that, the emotional and impactful drama.

All in all though, I wanted to experience it all so any character that I get the opportunity to play will be amazing to me.

8-. What actresses and actors do you feel confortable working with? 

I haven’t had the opportunity to work directly alongside any big names as of yet but Sylvester Stallone, Vin Diesel, Matt Damon, Chris Hemsworth, Keane Reeves, Sandra Bullock, Brad Pitt, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Cruise, Jason Stathem, George Clooney, Jennifer Aniston, Hugh Jackman, Ryan Reynolds, Sam Worthington, Chris Pratt, Margot Robbie, John Cena, Chris Evans, Tom Hardy, Adam Sandler, Dwayne Johnson, Denzel Washington, Cate Blanchett, Robert Downey Jr, Meryl Streep, Johnny Depp, Jake Gyllenhaal, Ryan Gosling, Mel Gibson, Channing Tatum, Nicholas Cage, Henry Cavil and so many more, I mean it’s just such an amazing industry filled with some super amazing people and I just hope to work alongside as many as possible but honestly, one of my biggest would have to be Jensen Ackles, I mean the way he play Dean Winchester in the tv series supernatural is amazing to me, I even named my eldest son after him and a little bit the car as well but mostly him just with a little twist with the spelling to make it our own.

9-. In what other genres of art would you like to participate? (Works of theater, music, among others) 

I mean, I don’t have a good singing voice however it’s definitely something I would love to learn so music is definitely up there, theatre was an amazing experience however it’s not really something I’m fully interested in, honestly, acting is all I want to do then from there expand into creating businesses outside of the industry for example, for a long time I’ve wanted to open up an old school bar ( think peaky blinders vibe ) and start a whiskey brand of my own ( I like my whiskey ), maybe start a clothing brand and collaboration with a shoe company and maybe start a business with my wife, something of her choosing that she would rather enjoy.

10-. Do you have any anecdotes that have marked you in your life and as a person? 

I don’t know where to start with this to be honest, I’ve had so many experiences throughout my life that have impacted me in life changing ways.

When I was 12 I was bashed and put in hospital, from there I was put into boxing to learn self defence, after a while I over heard my mother talking to the coach, she asked him how I was doing, he told her I was lazy, I would not push myself, that switched something in my mind, from there I began pushing myself outside of my comfort zone and that has stuck with my ever since.

When I was in high school my visual arts teacher Dr Cutcher was her name, I was struggling really hard in so many ways, school work, my mental and emotional health, I wasn’t in a good place, she pulled me aside one day and sat me down, she said to me something that has impacted my life ever since and I will never forget, she said to me “ if it’s challenging you then it’s worth it “.

I hope that wherever she is now she knows that there was a broken young man that she sat down with one day and gave a few simple little words that impacted his whole life for the better.

Now there was one major impactful moment that impacted me for life, it broke me, it broke my wife.

When I was 19 my wife ( girlfriend at the time ) told me she was pregnant, we were both extremely excited, moments later I was offered a job, an apprenticeship, what seemed like an amazing opportunity but to take the job I would have to move away, I relocated 12 hours north and left my pregnant partner to take on the apprenticeship to set us up for my family.

When I got north everything went bad, I was bullied, I was struggling with money, and I was depressed, I felt completely alone.

One day I get a call from my partner, she was in tears, she informed me that from her check up they found that the baby had a tumour and the right side of the heart hadn’t developed properly and we may have to abort, my heart sunk, every part of me broke in that moment but I could leave my partner to deal with this alone.

There were many points throughout my younger years that life seemed pointless and worthless but this was the biggest moment.

I flew home and attended an appointment alongside my partner and was given the full details, it was a girl, if she was born she would most likely not survive the birth and if she did it would be repeated heart surgeries yearly and more than likely a heart transplant eventually but the idea of a normal life for her was not a possibility, we made the decision there, the hardest decision of our lives.

We named her angel and she will forever be our angel in the heavens above.

I tried to hide it as much as possible but this broke me so much that I pretty well cried at least once per day for almost 10 years after.

That moment was the hardest moment of my life. 

In 2016 there was a moment that impacted my life financially for the next 8 years, now at this point I had just finished paying off my first car which was a 2007 mk2 bf ford falcon, I loved this car, finally a was debt free after paying it off and focusing on just working just to pay off my debt. One afternoon I was on my way to the gym when I came around a corner to quick and hit 2 pot holes, one straight after the other causing me to lose control of the car, the car slammed into a tree, I was very lucky that day however the car was just out of insurance so it wasn’t covered, I then had to take out another loan to get a new car, Christmas was coming up, I also had a credit card maxed out so I took out a $30k loan, got a new car, paid out my credit card, did everything I needed to do however had just set myself into a whole lot of debt that looking back and knowing what I know now I wish I hadn’t, a year or so after getting my new ( second hand ) car, the gearbox blew up in it, I hadn’t been able to afford to insure it, I was still in a over $20k worth of debt and the bank wouldn’t give me any more money, I was at this point trying to focus on the start of my acting career but I was working like a slave to pay off my debt as well which limited me to a lot of things I could do, my boss didn’t necessarily like me to much at that point in time either so I hadn’t had much room to play around. I sold the car with a blown gear box for $1500, I got myself another mk2 bf ford falcon with that money, I was happy with this car for what it was but soon the gearbox began playing up, I was about to book it in to get the gearbox serviced when suddenly we were struck with covid, the only shop around my area that could service the gearbox had shut down, I however still had to work so I had no choice but to still drive my car to work every day, by the time I could get my car in to get the gearbox serviced after everything opened back up I was told that it would be a $7500 rebuild, the car wasn’t even worth that and I certainly did not have that money, I sold that car with the blown gearbox for $750 which I used to by myself a Hyundai Gets, I was still paying off around $5000 debt at this point in time out of the $30k loan, the inheritance I received from my grandmothers passing all went to closing that debt in 2023, for the first time in over 10 years I was completely debt free and all I had to show for it was a Hyundai Gets and a whole lot of missed opportunities due to struggling financially and having to make the decision to work instead of taking chances within the film industry but no longer, I may be driving a horrible car but the financial limitations just ain’t worth it when all I want to do is act.

Now on a more positive note, having spoken to Chris Hemsworth in 2017 and just seeing how much of a genuine and nice guy he actually was to just randomly chat with me, someone he hadn’t known or even needed to talk to, I was like, if someone at that level can be such a normal and genuine dude, then surely it has to be possible for someone like me, that moment gave me the confidence to think to myself, okay, let’s do this, I can do this, that was a life altering moment for me as well.

11-. What has been your greatest achievement? 

My greatest achievement, definitely my two sons, I mean, no matter what else happens in my life, they will always be my greatest achievements and I hope that I can make them as proud as they make me.

12-. What projects will you make next and which ones do you have in mind? 

Well, I mean obviously there’s a lot I want to do and characters I want to explore and stories I want to tell, I will keep auditioning and if any opportunities present themselves I will take them on 100% but I really hope to lock down this limited series pitch I am co-writing, I’m not going to give any details on it but all I can say is that if will be a very impactful yet amazing story to tell and I look forward to bringing the character who is Dean Kellie to life ( okay, I dropped one little sprinkle, but that all haha ).

13-. Would you like to make a movie in Spain? 

Absolutely, Spain would be amazing and if the opportunity presented itself then I’m there.

All in all I honestly hope to travel and see the world with my career as an actor.

My son is also right into his football and Spain is a place he dreams of going so when I get there I hope to bring him with me to.

14-. You like Spanish cinema? 

Absolutely, I have seen some pretty epic Spanish films that are so well done and would have also been amazing productions to have been involved in.