We were lucky to catch up with Ariel King recently and have shared our conversation below.

Ariel , appreciate you joining us today. One of our favorite things to hear about is stories around the nicest thing someone has done for someone else – what’s the nicest thing someone has ever done for you?

I remember arriving to set my first day and having imposter syndrome because I was surrounded with the likes of Sarah Paulson, Cuba Gooding Jr. John Travolta, Sterling K. Brown and more. I walked onto set, said hello to the crew, was told where we would be waiting behind the scenes until it was time to shoot and I parted some curtains. All of the stars I’d watched on television growing up were sitting down studying or talking etc. As soon as I saw who was in there I tried to back out to catch my breathe and find somewhere else to wait. I turned around and Courtney B. Vance was there. He gently turned me back around and pushed me into the room…..he knew exactly what I was feeling. To me it was an absolutely profound thing a veteran actor could do. He cured any imposter syndrome I would have ever had moving forward

Ariel , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Living in Los Angeles for a while you start to discover your other hats, I love creating whether its acting, writing, producing and more recently entrepreneurship in the non-profit sector. I grew up in a home that was deeply involved in helping others and solving issues in our community. As my career progressed in the arts that part has always been apart of my motivation. Right now I am fundraising to create an app to stop violence stemming from a lack of resources. I’m also spreading awareness about organizations that are already creating positive impact and change that people may not be aware of in their time of need.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

There is a lesson I am unlearning, I have always assumed that endless preparation was my life until I got burned out and I had a moment of being so divided in my personal life, artistic pursuit, training and other responsibilities that an opportunity that I should have absolutely excelled at, I faltered. I was absolutely angry about it, but later on, I realized the opportunity I missed out on was not one that should have had my focus, ended up not being fruitful for those involved because the industry shut down due to the strike and personally I had an impending growth transition hit me within the strike.

This was a good transition for me financially, mentally and artistically, I saw growth I had not seen, magical alignments in jobs started to happen and had I taken that opportunity, I’d have been overwhelmed. So the lesson I had to unlearn is that endless preparation is not my life because there are different seasons and those seasons are sometimes rest periods of self reflection, incubators for the preparation you’ve already done.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

Everyday we can see how much we need the good people of the world to unite. We need to be arm in arm creating a bold presence in a seemingly bleak moment for humanity, we need our light to shine bright. I must finish my mission to launch my CAVEU platform because it does just that. I am fundraising at www.CAVEU.org.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.caveu.org
• Instagram: instagram.com/arieldking
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arieldking/

Image Credits
Photographers Oxana Alex John A Sutton