Ziv Zaifman, an eighth-grader at the middle school, has a passion for entertainment, specifically singing and acting. Recently, Zaifman landed a role to sing a track for the major motion picture, The Greatest Showman, starring Hugh Jackman, Zac Efron, Michelle Williams, Rebecca Ferguson, and Zendaya. The song is “A Million Dreams,” written by Justin Paul and Benj Pasek and featuring Hugh Jackman and Michelle Williams, in addition to Zaifman.

There was a casting call at the local JCC and both Zaifman and his sister, Gili (’19) attended. The next day Ziv got a callback from a manager. Right away, Zaifman sent in a clip of himself singing. After numerous auditions, he landed the role to sing “A Million Dreams.” In retrospect, it was satisfying for Zaifman to see how far he had gotten in the audition process given how difficult it was to get this role. The writers of the song, Paul and Pasek, were not as famous at the time and the movie was in development, so it wasn’t shocking to Zaifman till much later to see all the hype around the movie and the song.

Zaifman’s interest in the arts was sparked by watching his sister perform in local shows. He started performing in musicals at the age of eight and started to work professionally at the age of 12. When asked what it is like working in this industry, he said, “A lot of the auditions you go to, you don’t get most of them, but once you do get that one little part in that one little TV series, it feels like the work has paid off.” 

In the future, Zaifman will continue to  audition. “I want to keep acting and singing no matter what form it’s going to be, whether it’s professionally or doing school plays,” he said. Zaifman hopes everyone will go see The Greatest Showman in theatres now and enjoy the song and movie. Zaifman’s advice to aspiring actors is this: “There’s going to be a lot of times where you’re going to be disappointed that you didn’t get this specific role or job, but you can keep persevering, and if you work hard, it can get better, it will get better.”