“Cheers to You, Oh Wonderful You” with Benjamin Raymant – Interview #5

Welcome to my blog series “Cheers to You, Oh Wonderful You”, where we celebrate the ordinary yet extraordinary individuals around us. This series will be used as a space to connect, celebrate, and showcase the incredible people in our lives who ground us, teach us, and inspire us everyday. 

This interview I was joined by none other than my childhood best friend, Benjamin Raymant.

With COVID, Ben’s area of influence has drastically changed, but typically his community can be found with the people in the performing arts community where he spends most of his time. That or his church community, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Ben has a BFA in Music, Dance, Theatre from Brigham Young University. His career path is full time performing as a professional actor, singer, and dancer. And currently he’s fulfilling that path as a full time working actor.

One random fact about Ben is that he was born with an extra pinky.

Ben’s current favorite tv show is the British program, Grand Designs. Ben is sad that it’s not all available on Netflix and really wants more!

The following is my interview with Ben, which was an absolute joy to take part in and I hope you will enjoy and learn from it as I did. 


What has been one failure in your life that later became a win for you?

I would say my education was one of them. I really struggled with studies in grade school and up to high school. Learning how to manage my struggles to focus and my grades were definitely reflective of that challenge. But along with that, I was also able to discover a lot of creative outlets that helped me find where I can be of use.

Plus the work that I had to do after serving a mission for my church to get my grades back up, ended up being very helpful. It made it so that I didn’t take my education for granted, and it also helped me to really love those subjects that I really struggled with, like mathematics and science.

I always loved science but math was always a really difficult thing, and learning to love some of those more calculated, cerebral, left-brained subjects has actually been very rewarding. It has helped me better understand my world, and it has helped me to better appreciate my craft, my own field in the arts better.

It has also helped me to be a more well-rounded person, and it has really helped me appreciate the importance to not always get stuck in just the ethereal, creative mindset that a lot of creative people can get into. I think it’s important to balance out the left and right brain in order to have a healthy lifestyle in the performing arts.


Benjamin graduating from BYU with a BFA.
Photo Credit: Courtney Moreland

How do you feel that your life would have differed if you hadn’t pursued furthering your education? Like you said it could have been very easy to have figured that since your secular education hadn’t left the greatest influence on you, to just go on without it. So how do you feel that your life would have gone on without furthering your education?

I would have stayed in lower income housing, likely. Maybe not but my opportunities to be of better use to people and communities would have been drastically limited.

My ability to heal from my own past traumas and my ability to make my own way would have been limited. It’s been something that has been a very important discussion between Cait and me, because with our families we really value education, and it’s a pattern of living that the church, and the way we’ve grown up, has strongly encouraged.

The highest level of education that you can achieve is a worthy goal because it’ll only make you more useful to people and in the Lord’s hands. I’ve really felt that. I would’ve been a lot more ignorant and I don’t think I would have understood how to tackle issues that come my way.

So furthering your education has not only given you added knowledge and opportunity, but it has given you the tools to serve others better and in a lot of ways, set yourself free then?

Yes, education equips you to serve and it frees you to be able to choose whatever options you want.

If you could talk to yourself back when you were graduating high school, what would be something that you would tell yourself?

Save your money. Learn about finances. That’s what I would have told myself.

Everything else I’d say, you’re good, keep on, you’ll figure it out, but learn how to manage your finances. And if not, find a mentor, don’t try to do it alone. It’s unrealistic if you haven’t grown up effectively learning it, so don’t expect yourself to get it all on your own. Get a mentor, someone to coach you through it.

Who is one person that you can count on to be in your corner that you’re grateful for, and why?

My wife, absolutely. We’ve done the work to earn each other’s trust and that has been a labor over several years. I think that’s something that just earns confidence that is unrivaled or unmatched by anyone. That trust was developed through work and experiences that made it so that that is an easy question to answer.

I like that the one thing you kept saying was that it all involved work. Dreaming is a great thing but you have to utilize some action in making that possible, or even having those hard conversations to make that relationship worthwhile and worth going through day by day as a team. Definitely a key person to have in your corner.


Ben and his lovely wife, Caitlin Raymant
Photo Credit: Benjamin Raymant

Who has played a vital role as a mentor in your life?

There have been a few, but for my education my mentor has been a woman named Linette Smith. She introduced me to dance and theatre. She took a chance on me when she could have easily said that it was not impossible to put me in certain classes because I was too far along in my education. She took a chance on me and exercised a great amount of compassion and love.

The thing that I have most appreciated from her is that though she doesn’t believe in my faith, she expected every student to live up to the standards they believed in. That was an expectation that she held, that if you believe in God, then be the best Christian.

For her to have the capacity to take all of her students as they were and continue to try to build them up from where they were at, and so that they could all understand how they were growing, is probably one of the most Christlike people I have ever known.

She was the one who helped me find some healing moments through art and inspired me to pursue this career. She’s the one that helped me get into my BFA. She’s part of the reason why I want to go back to London, England to study theatre.

There have been several times where even though Linette doesn’t have kids, I have sent her Mother’s Day cards because that’s how much she means to me.

She’s the head of the dance department and the theatre department of the high school that she works at. I later found out that Linette had been given a national teaching honors award and it was one of the highest honors that you could receive for education in the nation, in Canada. I thought that was very well deserved.

She also instilled an expectation of professionalism in her students. I think for someone to balance an expectation of professionalism but also have that much compassion, is a very rare human being.

And I think it’s a huge blessing that she chose to go into high school education, cause she could have very easily taught at universities and she already ran three theatre companies, she very easily could have been making her way not doing high school. And I’m so grateful she understood the value of having good teachers in high school in such formative years.

I genuinely believe she saved a lot of kids and helped so many people realize their worth before they entered the workforce. I think that helped a lot of people have more ambition with their lives.


Ben (far right) performing in Wendy & Peter Pan, A BYU Theatre & Media Arts Department Production
Photo Credit: Unknown

What an absolute gift!

Yeah, she’s a great mentor to me.

That is really, really amazing to have had her as a mentor, and not just for a season of your life, but a continual force for good for yourself and so many others. It’s no wonder that she’s been recognized in the ways that she has.

A decade later and it’s still very fresh!

Also for other mentors, like for the mentors of how to be a good man, have come through several people. I can’t own it to just one man, but there have been several men in my life because I didn’t have one in my life all the time as a Dad, so I’m very grateful, mostly to the people in church.

When things aren’t going in the direction you were hoping, what have you found has usually been the right next step for you?

I’m not quite sure, at least for the last decade or so of my life, because I’ve been grateful to feel that whatever is coming is happening for a reason, even if I didn’t expect it. So I’ve been grateful for people, for my religious education, my own work with my relationship with God, has all helped me to find that when situations aren’t going as favorably, I still believe it has a purpose, it still has a direction.

The only times where I feel concerned is when I know that I’m not doing what I’m supposed to be doing. It’s not so much the mindset of “oh this situation happened to me, how do I get out of it?” It’s more the mindset of “shoot, I made a mistake I should probably get back on the track that helps me maintain that perspective of this is all working towards something”. When I forget that, it’s usually because I’m being disobedient to things I know to be true.

So what do I do? I usually start with studying the scriptures again. I make sure I’m spending time with people who are good influences. I make sure I’m praying, going to the temple, and serving.

I’ve been grateful that those periods of drought don’t seem to last that long because I usually get a hit upside the head by the Spirit. I’ve also just been grateful that I’ve kept good people around me, that’s a pattern of living I’ve tried to instill since middle school.

Probably starting with you and our group of friends, going to youth dances, that’s probably where it really all started. Trying to find good influences. I’m very grateful for that. All in all, I’ve been feeling pretty blessed lately. 

What are three skills you have developed that you are proud of yourself for?

I’m grateful for the skill I’ve developed of being kind to people, because it has always led me to better people and to situations where I can grow and be better.

I’m very grateful for my acting skills that I’ve been developing, because with whatever other artistic thing that I do it just helps me to be a more honest student of the human condition. My acting classes have taught me how to analyze people and situations in life, and I think it’s helped me to be a more compassionate person. To listen first and comment later.

My third would probably be dance, because with that I was able to meet my wife. Also it has helped me to feel very holistic with my body. I love the physical body, and it has been wonderful to learn how to better use it. I’ve loved that!


Ben utilizing his incredible dance skills.
Photo Credit: Nate Edwards

What is something you do that you enjoy that helps you to calm and slow you down?

I love to cook! I love it! Cooking has traditionally been a destresser for me and I love cooking for people. It’s a way I can serve, a way for me to practice creativity, and a way for me to feel pure joy. Pure, pure joy!

Speaking as one who has partaken of your food and also speaking for anyone else who has as well, we’re all very grateful for this calming activity too. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

Well thank you. That’s another thing that I love about it, it’s social. It’s a social experience that’s just wonderful. It’s lovely and it’s never the same. I love it!

What are some key elements in your environment, whether that’s in your home, creative space, or work space, that encourages and inspires you?

Honestly I’d say it’s my relationship with my wife, Cait, because we’ve done the work. We love working together and we both are very supportive of one another. The way we support one another is that we both feel that we can accomplish the ambitions from before we were married and the new ambitions we have as a new family.

Knowing that you are in a solid relationship and knowing that you have that foundation, especially one that won’t leave, because I’ve had mentors and friends, like best friends, where we had these amazing, inspiring experiences, but the fact is that we all leave. I think that the wonderful thing is that my wife is one that won’t leave.

Our progress gets to be done together, and that’s very inspiring. Especially seeing that we both have the tools to succeed together, feeling confident that we both rely on the Lord, we rely on each other, and have such trust in each other. I get very inspired to move forward knowing that I have a wonderful companion and partner that is just there through it all.

That’s the thing that we often maybe don’t talk about, but I think that that’s the biggest thing that we as people worry about, is going through our goals and wondering who’s going to help me or how am I going to make it though? And I think a lot of that stress is mitigated by having someone in your court all the time.

Especially having that person be a constant, like you’ve been saying. Having those mentors, friends, and family is crucial and really great, but there’s the constant comings and goings, even if those are brief or whatever the extension of time, distance, or circumstance is with those interactions and relationships. But in this case with your wife it’s a constant.

Yeah, I’ve loved traveling to Brazil, Europe, but every time that I’ve traveled or done theatre in the States, the concerning element with all of that was that as fun as those moments were, when this ends I’m the only one that can keep this memory and these experiences.

The wonderful thing about now and the wonderful constitution of marriage is that those are all shared and worked through together. That motivates one to work hard and to reach for anything, reach for the stars.

What are three reasons that you have had to celebrate lately?

I got to do a show with my wife, that was lovely. That was a very rare opportunity. It was wonderful to bear testimony through a professional experience through the arts with my wife. Wonderful! It doesn’t get better than that.

The second one was graduation. That was great, that was wonderful!

Both Cait and I have been blessed with work. We’ve been taken care of with work consistently and we’ve been kept busy. I think that’s been a huge cause for celebration that we keep moving forward.

OH! And Canada’s borders are open so we can finally go see family for Christmas! Celebration!! That’s a big one!


Ben & Cait celebrating their graduation together.
Photo Credit: Courtney Moreland

What is one piece of advice that you find yourself thinking back on and striving to implement the most often?

There have been so many, but the one that I can think of that I heard from my uncle while on my mission that I just never forgot, was to be diligent, not frantic and you won’t miss the joy of the time that you have left.

Diligence replacing frantic behavior, it prompts one to be more calculated and not feel the need to be spastic about ones lifestyle.

Very wise words. That’s easy to forget in this fast paced, demanding, distracting world that we live in.

Yeah, and the reason I was hesitant to say that is because it was very big for several years, but I just remembered the one that’s been heavy hitting for the last couple of years, which is live in a way that you can be ready for the Lord to tell you to do something and you’ll be ready to do it.

Because we know that the last days are a time where a lot of changes will come, a lot of new revelations will come, and there will just be a lot of difficult trials. So to live your life in a way where you can recognize the voice of the Lord and act no matter what takes preparation. Cait and I have been continually learning that it takes preparation to have that kind of willingness.

Right, so it’s not about a mere checklist or a destination, but a journey that builds a willing heart and a ready mind?

Yeah, and I think that’s the biggest thing, it’s not a checklist. It has to be an actual change of heart and nature.

What are three things you have been particularly grateful for this past week or month?

Working in a show with my wife, the borders opening so we can go home to Canada for Christmas, and steady work, like I said before with reasons to celebrate, are also my main reasons to be grateful right now.

What do you feel have been key factors in shaping who you are today?

My sense of duty to God and the priesthood authority that I bear.

What do you feel have been some key habits in shaping who you are today?

Attending the temple and keeping good people in my life have definitely been the big ones. 

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Thank you for taking part in and reading my interview for my blog series, “Cheers to You, Oh Wonderful You” with Benjamin Raymant.

What is one thing that you have been grateful for this past week?

Comment below and share this blog post if it has been of value to you or could be to someone else.

Also, if you have someone in mind that you think I should interview for this blog series, please let me know by contacting me either through my work email: stephanietracy26@gmail.com or my work Facebook page: Stephanie Tracy Writes.