Actor Marcos James credits the training he received in Jamaica for the foundation that catapulted him internationally.

He made his comments during the Jamaica Creative Career Expo held at Jamaica Conference Centre in downtown Kingston on Thursday.

“Irrespective of where you are in Jamaica, there are always resources that you can find out about. ASHE exists, there’s a young gentleman here that has a company called Yardie, and there are other organisations that exist. So, I would say find an organisation that is closest to you where you can at least start. Start with the training there. Think outside of the box, and do research on how you can get better,” said James.

“If you wanna be an actor, for example, find that local organisation. Do research on YouTube, watch movies, make notes, and then as you progress, you’ll find other organisations that you’re qualified to join. The one thing I wanna mention is that all my training happened in Jamaica. I was part of the Little People and Teen Players Club, then ASHE, and then L’Acadco. I did not train overseas at all. So when I left Jamaica my first job was The Lion King, the West End production, and that was from my Jamaican training. I went into the audition and I got like eight call-backs, and in the end I was like ‘I’m definitely getting this.’ “

The Kingston-born James has landed roles in major films such as HBO‘s Game Of Thrones, Lifetime Movie Network‘s Keeping up With The Joneses, and Walt Disney’s The Lion King, West End.

Other panellists for the session included ASHE’s executive director Conroy Wilson and artistic director at Quilt Performing Arts Company Rayon McLean. The session was moderated by Rushane “RushCam” Campbell.

A graduate of The University of the West Indies, James is a former member of ASHE which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. After moving to the United Kingdom in his teens, he earned a master’s degree in film production from the University of Bristol.

Even with all the accolades he gained abroad, James insists his home-grown training set the tone for his future accomplishments.

“I took my Jamaica training, obviously I learnt on the job as I progressed, but in terms of my core training, that took me all the way up to Game of Thrones. All of that was achieved with the core training that I got in Jamaica and on-the-job training after that,” he said.

“After Game of Thrones is where it really got serious with regards to acting, which is a whole different ball game of psychological analysis and introspective work on yourself and studying accents and that kinda thing. So it did change after that, ’cause I had to do classes and stuff, but in terms of the core long-term training, it’s in Jamaica. So you do have the resources here and Jamaicans are such resilient people, so if you are not finding an organisation that you can turn to that’s probably due to a lack of effort,” James reasoned.

The one-day Jamaica Creative Career Expo is the brainchild of the Ministry of Entertainment and Culture. It seeks to inform people of the opportunities that exists in the creative industries.

There were performances by Mozein Sutherland and La Lee.