 Credit: Vipoositha Gnanenthra Time for another Q&A! This time, I chatted with actor Vas Saranga known for The Strain, Orphan Black and Salvation about how he got his start, what he's working on now and personal definition of success. Check out the interview below: How did you get into acting? I was always the class clown growing up, so I was already used to entertaining an audience, so to speak. I cast myself in several of my own student films in high school, mainly out of necessity, since we were short on actors (we didn't have access to the drama students). I started to really enjoy performing for the camera. When I got to university I took several acting classes, and with some encouragement from my teachers, I decided that it was something I would pursue as a career. You've worked on both Orphan Black and Salvation - how would you sum up those experiences? Orphan Black was an incredible experience. I've been a long time fan of the show, and actually auditioned for several other characters over the years. I finally got cast as Amar, which was the perfect role for me. I got to work directly with John Fawcett, one of the co-creators of the show, as well as several other talented directors, writers, actors, and crew. It was a very physical role, requiring lots of running on rough terrain. I was guiding tracking dogs, really fast Dobermans, while wearing heavy hunting gear. We would do take after take at full speed from many different angles, but I really enjoyed the challenge. The highlight of the experience was acting with Tatiana Maslany. Performing scenes with her is energetic and fun, and also very surreal, since she plays so many different characters. I was happy to discover that her talent lives up to the hype. Salvation is a very cool project with tons of talented and well respected people involved. The best part of the experience was reuniting with Mike Werb, a writer and consulting producer on Salvation, and the creator of Cartoon Network's 'Unnatural History', on which I recurred. Working with him is always a blast. My character, Dexter, works in the pentagon as an analyst, so there's a lot of science involved in the dialogue, which I found fascinating. I enjoy playing characters who are much smarter than me! The stakes are always high on Salvation because it's about an asteroid on course to collide with earth, and so there was never a dull moment on set. I'm really excited for people to see it. What is your personal definition of success? I think success is the result of achieving what you set out to do. I believe it comes in stages and is ever evolving, so everyone is successful to some degree. The pursuit of even higher levels of success is what drives people in any business to get even better, and that's something I try to put into practice with my work in the film and television industry. Learn more about Vas here and make sure to give him a follow on Twitter @vas_saranga!
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