How is your school helping kids become actors?
At a time it wasn’t a lot of places for a lot of kids to go. I’m in Philadelphia, so it wasn’t a lot of acting schools and Philly is not an industry town. When you talk about the arts or anything like that, you got to go somewhere else to do it. A lot of the greats come from Philly, so it was just another platform where I could help, and also serve and help and show them where opportunities were. The name Aikan is actually my name backwards, but it’s basically a play on words saying “I can act.” So it’s a positive reinforcement to encourage, [whatever] stage you are in, from kid to adult, if you put your mind to it, you can do it. You tell yourself, you can do it, you will do it. And I’m going to tell you, it’s not an easy road being an actor, but it’s enlightening.
