In a masterclass held at Actor's Anonymous in Bucharest, American director Milton Justice met David Petrovici, unaware that a professional revelation was about to unfold. \"When I first saw him, I thought he was just another kid,\" Milton Justice recounts. But as the workshop progressed, something changed: \u201cThere was something about the way he worked\u2014so focused, serious, and unclich\u00e9d\u2014that caught my attention. Then I knew he was a really interesting actor.\u201d<\/p>\n
The name Milton Justice may not mean much to the general public in Romania. But in the American industry, he is a solid benchmark. An Oscar-winning director (1987, Down and Out in America), Emmy winner, and acting professor at prestigious schools such as the Stella Adler Conservatory, Yale School of Drama, and Seoul Institute of the Arts, Justice has worked with names such as Mark Ruffalo and Ben Affleck. That is precisely why the comparison between David Petrovici and Ruffalo, which Justice makes explicitly, carries so much weight.<\/p>\n
\"I had the same feeling when I first saw Mark Ruffalo in a class. I knew he had that 'something.' I felt the same way with David,\" says the director. What impressed him so much? The answer is simple: courage. In an exercise designed to eliminate banal and mechanical acting, David managed to play an absurd scene with no relevant lines, but with depth. \"What matters in acting is what's behind the words, not just the words themselves,\" explains Justice.<\/p>\n
This rare reaction from an international professional caught the attention of the Dan Voiculescu Foundation for the Development of Romania, which selected David Petrovici for its \"100 Youngsters for Romania's Development\" campaign. He is the first actor in the program's history to receive this recognition.<\/p>\n
David was admitted in 2024 to the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), one of the most competitive acting schools in the world, founded by Walt Disney, where directors such as Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo) and Pete Docter (Inside Out, Up) trained. He received the following message from the admissions committee: \"It is rare that we meet someone like you.\"<\/p>\n
For Justice, meeting David wasn't just a pleasant surprise. It was a personal reminder of what authentic acting means. \"I'm still cynical. I've been teaching for 35 years, working for 50. Very rarely does anything surprise me anymore. David did. That says a lot.\"<\/p>\n
David Petrovici's entry into the \"100 Youngsters for Romania's Development\" campaign is, in this case, confirmation of an internationally recognized vocation. And when a professional of Milton Justice's stature says of a Romanian teenager that \"he is the exception, not the rule,\" perhaps it is time to take the talent we have before our eyes more seriously.<\/p>\n<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00centr-un masterclass \u021binut la Actor\u2019s Anonymous din Bucure\u0219ti, regizorul american Milton Justice l-a \u00eent\u00e2lnit pe David Petrovici, f\u0103r\u0103 s\u0103 \u0219tie c\u0103 urmeaz\u0103 o revela\u021bie profesional\u0103. \u201eC\u00e2nd l-am v\u0103zut prima dat\u0103, am crezut c\u0103 e doar un alt copil\u201d, poveste\u0219te Milton Justice. Dar, pe m\u0103sur\u0103 ce atelierul avansa, ceva s-a schimbat: \u201eEra ceva \u00een felul lui […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4436,"featured_media":51065,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3338,3339,3345,269,100],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-100-de-tineri-pentru-dezvoltarea-romaniei","category-100detineripentrudezvoltarearomaniei-cultura","category-editia-2025","category-noutati","category-stiri"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n