Some people were born with a niche for something. Sometimes it’s sports, writing, or making people laugh. For Graham Bennet, one of our recent Homeschool Academy graduates, it’s acting.

Graham has been an actor since he was 9 years old.  He started his career playing Tiny Tim in the American Conservatory Theater’s annual production of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol in San Francisco – 30 sold-out shows in a 1,000-seat theater.  In addition to more theater work, he has since starred in a number of short films that have been accepted to and won awards at numerous film festivals across the country.

As a student, Graham was never much of a reader, despite playing in numerous Shakespeare plays and loving stories of all kinds.  After spending middle school at a Waldorf school, his family moved to Southern California and enrolled him in a private college prep school with a Tony award-winning acting teacher.  While the drama program and choir were great, Graham struggled with his academics even though he put in a lot of time and effort. He then enrolled at Elite halfway through his sophomore year, just as he was finally diagnosed with a severe case of dyslexia.

At Elite, Graham got the individual attention, encouragement, and support he so desperately needed. His academics quickly took a turn for the better and he started to enjoy his schoolwork. His turnaround was so profound that with some community college classes and extra work over the summer, he actually graduated early, finishing high school on January 15th of this school year.

Graham is currently applying to and auditioning for acting conservatories on the East coast and in the UK.  He intends to spend the rest of this year seeking work in the film business.  He has already acted in another short film that is now in post-production, with voiceover work set to happen next month.  He will participate in the Palm Springs International Film Festival as a youth juror for the third year in a row.  He is also taking an essay from his last English class and turning it into a script for an animated short film.

As the whim strikes, he sometimes posts videos on TikTok, where his most watched video garnered over 2M views.

Thanks to Elite, Graham still has a desire to learn and a positive attitude.  Graham will not be going to college and taking the normal route, but that’s just fine – his journey promises to be all the more interesting.