Yannick is my forever crush. He just is. He is an incredible actor and a Hugh Jackman doppelgänger. Being around Yannick Trapman-O’brien is like being around a young human being with an old soul. He has a voice that makes you want to travel back in time and reminisce some old tale.
Yannick was a year ahead of me in college and because he was also a theatre major I got to watch him work. It was fascinating. We could be reading the exact same play but he would walk into class as if the book was written about him. He owned his characters. Finally, one day, our professor announced that Yannick was to be my scene partner for the rest of the semester. I was extremely freaked out yet excited. I was like, are you kidding me! I get to work with this guy. Yo! I showed up on time for rehearsals, I practiced doubly hard because I did not want to let Yannick down. He was an A plus theatre student…like… I could be getting a job from him in the future, I could not mess this up.
I remember this one time; we were doing an exercise in class where we got to switch roles with our scene partners. Yannick would be me and I would be him. In order to do this, it meant our homework was basically spending time with one another and getting to know the other person while taking note of how they gestured, breathed and spoke. It was fun! Fun for me because I could put myself aside for once and be someone else but I felt bad for Yannick because he had to be me. When our day came to showcase our character studies, Yannick showed the class and I his version of me and I burst out laughing. I remember him saying in front of the whole class, “When I try to be her, I feel like I can’t breathe and I am nervous all the time.” I was like YIKES! Geee, that’s how I feel being me. #LIGHTBULB. So when it came for me to showcase my version of Yannick, I told the class that I felt great. I felt bold and free and alert and everything I wanted to be. Mehn! That was a huge, huuuuggge lesson for me on who I was.
But despite it all Yannick spoke to me on the side at length about his own struggles and worries and hopes. How he understood how I felt. He sent me this post letter some time in the future that let me know that I didn’t just get a scene partner, I got a friend who taught me how to see myself as big and better. I always thought that if I show too much personality, the world might get overwhelmed but it’s quite the opposite. Yannick, by being himself gave me freedom to be break out of fearful walls. Now, when I have auditions, I think of Yannick. I think, be big Aganza, Be big.
Ciao