MY name is Jack Ryan and I live in Lower Manhattan with my mom and dad. My dad is a police officer of the Port Authority Police Department but he and mom were all immigrants from Ireland when they first came here. Our last name is really Ryan but my dad decided to christen me Jack after his idol Jack Ryan who was immortalized by Tom Clancy and Harrison Ford in many films such as Patriot Games and later on by Ben Affleck in The Sum of All Fears.

I am now in my junior year at Stuyvesant High School here in lower Manhattan. My family has been in the law enforcement sector with my grandpa a retired police officer back in Dublin but I have never been interested in being a police officer. I am instead interested in film appreciation that is why I am planning to take up a degree in filmmaking at nearby NYU Film School. Modesty aside, getting to NYU Film School is I think will be pretty easy for me since I come from Stuyvesant.

But before that, my parents have decided that we all in the family go to my parents’ hometown in Dublin for the one-week spring break. That will be my first trip to Ireland but instead of touring castles with my parents and younger sister; I have decided to tour around key movie studios in Dublin to get a feel of how the Irish film industry looks like.

I am still 15 and my Irish actress crush right now is13-year-old Saoirse Ronan, that lovely and adorable girl I’ve seen in the movie Atonement. She really did an amazing job in the movie and in fact, she has received a 2008 Oscar nomination for best supporting actress. And I’m proud that she’s Irish.

Of course, one other Irish actor that I like is Cillian Murphy. I have seen Cillian in two movies, 28 Days Later and Red Eye and I can see that he’s good especially his chemistry being both a lover and a villain to actress Rachel McAdams. Modesty aside again, I know I look like Cillian Murphy although he is popular and I’m not. I intend to change that course of my life. I want to be popular like Cillian but behind the camera and not in front of it.

Acting courses are eing carried out throughout Europe too - all it takes is to look for one of the cheap vuelos to Spain and you could be acting out the famous scenes from Don Quijote!