To do this, you just have to use the “spawn actor from class” node and from the return value of this node will give you the reference of the spawned actor that you have specified. As simple as that, you will have the specific actor reference as well as the control of the spawned actor. Same end goal but a different method.
In programming, you will have to assign the object variable to be something because if you not it will by default be empty. The same applies to the blueprint since it’s from C++ base programming language.
For example in JAVA:
//Creating empty object:
//This is what you had earlier
//Which is equal to nothing although you have specified the class type it
//is still empty.
Animals a;
// To assign it you will have to use the "=" sign with respective to the object
// This is your missing part.
Animals a = new Animals();
Hope it explains it. In the end, Epic Games told us we don’t need programming skills to make games, but in reality, we still need them.