Chris Banks

     Born and raised on 5th Street in South Boston, My mother is a single mother, she’s an alcoholic. My father was in the military most of my life and now works for the City of Boston, he’s also an alcoholic. I'm an only child. They did their best, and they did what was best for me. Thankfully. I played all kinds of sports growing up, I got into all kinds of trouble. When your mother is busy working and unavailable emotionally, you act out to get attention. I always loved being the center of attention. As a kid, I thrived being on stage. Creativity was never a class, but me and my friends created entire wrestling leagues (complete with characters and storylines). My classmates and I would create skits out of our weekly vocabulary words. Pretty soon, the entire class would participate because our teacher made it a weekly thing.

Acting, performing, storytelling-this stuff has always been in my blood

But we had no money. Luckily we did have a great family though. My grandfather (an immigrant from Cork, Ireland) borrowed money from his boss in the 50s to buy the home that sits on Fifth Street in Southie that my family still lives in today.

Naturally, I told myself I had to go to college. I’ve worked since I was 13, mostly with kids. Paid for my own braces at 16. My mom used my dads child support to send me to St. Brigid’s and then Gate of Heaven School that used to be in Southie. I graduated from Pope John XXIII High School in Everett, MA. I’m very thankful she did. She had to work. I came from household of women, mainly her sisters (among many others like friends moms, and ‘cousins’). It took a village to raise me. It takes a village to raise any child. Spending my days down the old, Old Colony Projects with my aunt.   I worked with kids for close to a decade, in a lot of different capacities. I helped my uncle coach girls softball and boys little league. I took out loans to pay for college. I spent my entire young adult life in school, working. What did I learn about? People, emotions, communities, culture, perception, dreams, sex, monsters, logic, law, and government.

The summer I was to graduate I interned at a family law firm, and I studied and prepared to go law school. I was the first in my family to graduate from college. A.S. Behavioral Science Quincy College, B.A. Psychology University Of Massachusetts Boston. I took the LSAT. I loved the brain challenge of law.

But I could not enroll in law school, because that summer was my first time ever on a film set - Katheryn Bigelow’s Detroit.

And as they say, the rest is history.It reminded me of what my purpose was, why I was breathing air and it rekindled a fire I had as a kid.

I needed to act. I needed to get experience. I was already in mid20s. I needed to do so many different things in front of and behind the camera before I could even think about joining an actors union. So then I quit all three of my jobs in Boston in the summer of 2017, packed two bags, brought my pillow and moved to New York City, with nothing but a month’s rent. I had no idea what awaited me. I could not have been any luckier..