Globally famous actor speaks at NMU

MARQUETTE — A globally famous actor visited and spoke at NMU tonight.

Sean Astin is well–known for his roles in The Goonies, Rudy, and my personal favorite as Samwise Gamgee in The Lord Of The Rings. Tuesday night Astin spoke to a crowd of nearly 900 people at NMU about “Life Lessons from a Career in Film.”

“A lot of times when I talk I try and get people to get excited about living with a sense of mission in their life, a sense of purpose,” said Actor, Director, Voice Artist, & Producer Sean Astin, “you can get a lot of inspiration from that idea that whatever it is you’re doing at whatever level, if you treat it with an earnest intensity the rewards are great.”

Astin is known as a strong advocate for literacy, mental health awareness, bipolar disorder, and civic engagement. He passed on his passion for these topics while presenting. Astin was very eager to talk about his family, including his oldest daughter who just began her first year of college at Harvard.

He added that having a daughter in college has slightly altered his perspective for these campus presentations but the feelings he has for them remains the same.

“I love speaking at student groups whether it’s community colleges, university settings, I just like doing it. So when I found that they were eager to have me come I jumped to the chance. I always feel a little bit more alive like my life means something a little bit more because I was able to share lessons from it with other people. So I get as much out of it I guarantee you as what anyone else does.”

Astin was true to those words and went out of his way to interact with the hundreds of people who attended the event, while passing on valuable life lessons.