How I Built AI Tools for Actors — My Story on Livin' in San Diego

It was 11 PM on a Tuesday. I had an audition the next morning — a dramatic scene, two characters, lots of back-and-forth. And I had nobody to run lines with.

That's the moment ActorLab started. Not in a pitch meeting. Not in a startup accelerator. In my apartment, alone, staring at sides I couldn't properly rehearse.

The Problem Nobody Talks About

Here's the dirty secret of acting: the craft requires a partner, but the lifestyle doesn't give you one.

You get your sides at 9 PM. Audition's at 10 AM. Your scene partner from class is asleep. Your roommate doesn't act. Your coach charges $150/hour and isn't available on short notice.

So what do you do? You read both parts yourself. You record yourself on your phone and play it back. You stare at the page and imagine the other person's energy.

It's terrible. And every actor does it.

A Biochemist Who Needed a Scene Partner

My background isn't in tech — it's in biochemistry. I spent years in a lab before I caught the acting bug. But that science brain? It kicks in when I see a problem that shouldn't exist.

The problem: actors can't practice their craft without another human present. In 2026. With all the AI in the world. That felt broken.

So I built a thing. It started simple — a basic script reader that could read the other character's lines out loud while I practiced mine. Robotic voice. Janky interface. Didn't matter. It worked. For the first time, I could rehearse a two-person scene alone at 11 PM and actually feel prepared the next morning.

That prototype became Scene Partner Pro.

What Scene Partner Pro Became

Today Scene Partner Pro has:

• 11 premium AI voices from ElevenLabs — American, British, Scottish, Australian accents, male and female
• Voice-activated advancement — the AI listens and automatically moves to the next line when you finish yours. Hands-free. No clicking.
• 168 built-in practice scenes across drama, comedy, thriller, sci-fi, horror, and more
• Custom script upload — bring your own sides (PDF or text) and the AI parses the characters automatically
• Automatic gender-matched voice casting — upload a scene and it assigns the right voices to the right characters

It's the scene partner that never sleeps, never cancels, and never judges you for wanting to run the scene one more time at midnight.

But I Didn't Stop at One Tool

Scene Partner Pro solved my rehearsal problem. But actors have a lot of problems.

Tracking auditions across five platforms. Building a resume that doesn't look like a Word doc from 2004. Analyzing your booking rate. Finding monologues. Journaling your process. Managing industry contacts.

So I kept building. And building.

ActorLab today is 19 professional tools:

• Scene Partner Pro (AI scene practice)
• Character Interview (AI asks your character the hard questions)
• Character Builder (deep backstory development)
• Resume Builder (professional formatting in minutes)
• Demo Reel Builder & Analyzer
• Casting Dashboard
• Callback Tracker
• Submissions Tracker
• Smart Contact Manager
• Actor Journal
• CastAlert Hub
• Teleprompter with eye-line coaching
• Analytics dashboard
• And more

All in one platform. All designed by someone who actually uses them before every audition.

The Podcast: Livin' in San Diego

I recently had the chance to sit down with the Livin' in San Diego podcast to share this whole story — the biochemistry background, the late-night frustration, the decision to build instead of complain, and where ActorLab is headed.

We talked about:

• Why actors are actually the perfect early adopters of AI (we're not afraid of it — we use it)
• How San Diego's acting scene is different from LA (and why that matters)
• The moment I realized this wasn't just a side project
• What's coming next for ActorLab

It was one of those conversations where you forget there's a microphone. Real talk about building something from scratch while still going to auditions. I'll drop the episode link here as soon as it's live — stay tuned.

Try It Yourself

If you're an actor who's ever stared at sides at 11 PM with nobody to run them with — this is for you.

Try ActorLab free → — 19 tools, 168 scenes, no credit card required. See pricing → — upgrade when you're ready for premium voices, unlimited sessions, and priority support.

The free tier isn't a bait-and-switch. It's a real free plan with real tools. I built this for actors first, business second. Because I'm still one of you.

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Questions? Find me on Twitter @The_ActorLab or just reply to any email from ActorLab — it comes straight to me.