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Nick Austin, Southbridge commercial actor

Veer Mudambi

Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK

Local actor Nick Austin is the epitome of Build Back Better, having battled a debilitating depression that threatened to end his career but came out on the other side. The Southbridge native went from a promising career in Florida to struggling to pay the bills, before reigniting his passion for acting and finding hope even in the chaos that was 2020.

Walk me through your journey with depression and how it began.

I had a good year in 2017-2018, working as an actor and living in Florida. When I came home for a project in Connecticut, I stayed with my mom in Massachusetts. That’s when I met this girl and even though I went back to Florida to continue my path, I ended up staying there for just a month. I packed up and came home in October of 2018, leaving everything I had built in Florida. I was hustling, motivated, doing the best I could, then after an unsuccessful romantic entanglement, everything just collapsed. I had nowhere to go, no direction. I had no plan — I lied to people, saying I was working but I wasn’t really. Basically it was a real downward spiral.

Did you pursue any acting gigs here?

I didn’t do any auditions — I totally quit acting, which I loved. No casting, no submissions, no reading. I was just so scattered that I took a real estate license course, searching for something to fill the void and keep my mind busy but I used to just sit in the class not even knowing what was going on. I was just so wrapped up in why on earth I had left my career in Florida and how here I was, sitting in a class learning about something I didn’t even want to do. I failed the federal test seven times and the state nine times before I passed and wasted so much money. At that point, there was so much rejection and failure that the space in my head was bad. Once I passed, I didn’t even care. I had thought it would boost my confidence and morale but it just got worse.

By that point, I started to run out of money because I had spent a great deal trying to get a start in the real estate venture. So I started working with a friend at a property management company. It was a tough job, we were working in a pretty run-down apartment and I remember, I was cleaning a bathtub thinking — this is my life now. I left my dream in Florida and now here I am in this apartment. I had lost all inspiration and motivation for everything. I was just so far gone and couldn’t get back up so I just walked away from that job. And that turned into staying home every day, barely able to get out of bed. It was grey. No emotion for anything and just started to fall into really bad times. In the summer of 2019, all my friends are working, doing their thing, and I was home alone with no goals, no aspirations, just spending money. When was the turning point?

The first turning point was admitting to my friends that I was in very bad shape — I was sitting in a parking lot, crying on the phone to one of my best friends and basically confessed that I was completely broke. I had spent everything I earned, acting-wise and investment-wise, I had spent every single dime.

I was not even functional and had to set little goals — like getting up and brushing my teeth was a small accomplishment, and cleaning my room or car. Then I began to regain some kind of composure and confidence about the basic stuff in life. While I was pulling myself together, what really gave me some momentum was driving cross-country with my dad to pick up my brother in California. He’s a pilot in the Marine Corps and was returning from deployment ... It was really impactful to me I was in California for a couple weeks and came back to Massachusetts and got a job with UPS. Getting a little money and a work routine helped me get back on the rails a little.

How did you get back into acting?

I ended up getting in touch with a producer from New York, who was someone my family knew. He was doing a feature film in Dubai. I met with him on Super Bowl Sunday in February 2020. I had started to get a bit of my old hustle back and drove to New York, even though everybody was home watching the game. He gave me a role in his film and flew me out to Dubai about two weeks later. At that point, though I was able to manage daily functions, I was still climbing out of a deep hole — so everybody around me was not in favor of me pushing myself like that but everything worked out smoothly, and I was in Dubai for about three weeks. At the time, I remember standing outside the Dubai mall, probably about a million people and realizing how it was the first big gig I had since I basically quit everything.

Coming back to Massachusetts after that, I got a little bit of a daily rhythm back, still doing the little victories each day to keep going. My cousin and her husband own a farm/brewery nearby and I was just like, yeah, I need this. It was the best thing that happened to me mentally — working on the farm doing all kinds of stuff. It helps you focus on what’s in front of you and not stay in your head as much. From there, I was able to continue acting, book some gigs and get back on that track.

How was it trying to pull yourself up during the pandemic of all times?

It was kind of like a clean slate. We were all in the same boat with everything kind of shut down, so I decided I had to pave another path. I booked some small projects for some commercial companies. It revitalized me in the sense that it felt like a fresh start — the slow process of everything opening back up sort of mirrored my own journey of slowly climbing back up.

The industry changed very fast during the pandemic — it turned into a lot of self takes, where you submit audition tapes from home. I built a home studio and worked from home — it became pretty fun to send stuff from my house, the deadlines were a bit later and I could send more tapes out. There are still more self takes being accepted and I think it helps many actors and models.

During the pandemic, I did stuff for Viacom, CVS, Weber Grills — it was huge doing that, looking back. Now that I think about it, doing all that during that time made a difference for me and I’m just super grateful for those opportunities ... Fast forward to right now, December 2021, I think I’m in the best position of my life.

What would your advice be to young people — those dealing with depression?

Everybody handles it differently but there’s some great help out there. At the end of the day, no matter what, you’re in your own mind, it’s just you, no matter what. I personally think that if you set little goals every single day — have multiple ones each day — it can give you momentum that you need to keep going. Also, you can’t bottle it up — talk to people. If it wasn’t for my friends and family, I wouldn’t be here, to be honest.

Nick Austin is a commercial actor from Southbridge,

Mass. NICK AUSTIN MANAGEMENT