I honestly can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to be an actor. There’s a home video of a little three-year-old me somewhere in my mother’s closet exclaiming into the camcorder, “I’m gonna be an actress one day, Mama!” Growing up with plenty of extra energy and a wild imagination, performance came naturally to me. And since the setting of my childhood was the laid-back, sunny southern city of Wilmington, NC which, at the time, had accrued a reputation for good community theater and had a thriving film industry, the choice of this profession seemed natural to me. I felt made for it, and it was impossible to deter me from pursuing it. After graduating high school, I signed with my first agent and started auditioning for film and television, while still participating in theater productions and attending college. Thankfully, I have found some success in pursuing this insane and beautiful craft.
Did you study acting
As with anything considered a craft, instruction and study is a must. It is the only way to get started, to grow. I have mostly studied acting privately with a coach, or in master classes. It is essential to have know and understand various acting techniques in order to provide a basis in developing one’s own personal process.
What acting technique do you use
The technique I have studied the most has been Meisner, but over time I have been able to pick and choose concepts from various techniques that worked for me to create my own method.
Photo by Ethan Sigmon
What wrong impressions do actors hold about acting
Something many actors (and people in general) assume about acting is that it is selfish, or narcissistic. If one is in this business for narcissism’s sake, I suggest they either quit or change their perspective. Because it is not easy. There are many easier ways to stroke one’s ego than to be an actor. An acting coach of mine once told me that if there was any way I could be happy doing something else, I should quit and try that something else. (There isn’t; I wouldn’t.) To be an actor is to allow one’s spirit to explore another’s experience and then experience it for oneself. Doing acting for the right reasons gleans a valuable reward: deeper empathy. There is also an assumption made about actors that troubles me: that a good actor is a professional liar. A good actor is someone that gives an honest performance, who really experiences and reacts in truth on stage or screen. An audience can tell when an actor is lying to them, and dishonest actors are unsuccessful long-term. No one likes to be lied to. Sanford Meisner said it best: “Acting is living truthfully under imaginary circumstances”.
Do you take courses to improve your craft
I have taken quite a few courses to improve my craft, and I plan to take many more. As long as I’m alive, I want to learn and grow in this art. But the best way to really hone one’s acting technique is through experience and application of what is learned in the workshop or master class through working.
What acting books do you read
Books I would suggest for beginning actors are Audition by Michael Shurtleff, On The Technique of Acting by Michael Chekhov, and The Sanford Meisner Approach, a four-book series by Larry Silverberg. And, of course, read as many plays and screenplays as possible.
Photo by Ethan Sigmon
How do you keep fit as an actor
I keep fit mentally through reading and studying. Having a strong and sound technique is the best way I have found to keep psychologically healthy. Exercise a minimum of one hour four times a week and a diet high in good fats (avocados, eggs, coconut oil, etc.) keeps me physically fit and my brain functional and ready to memorize pages of text!
When you’re offered a role, what do you do next
As soon as I am offered a role, I request a full script and memorize it. I read it over and over and over again. I write it down repetitively. The text is the actor’s bible and getting the words firmly ingrained in the heart is the first step in truly understanding a character and her motivations. Get off book as quickly as possible. Your director will thank you.
How do you take a character in a script to a honest, believable and breathing person
I try to find myself in her. After that, all of our differences start to make sense and she becomes organically dynamic. I get lost in her, fall in love with her, and, most importantly, I never judge her. Don’t just take a walk in a character’s shoes, analyze her motivation in buying those particular shoes in the first place.
How do you stay fresh on set
Staying in character and communicating with the director help me stay fresh on a film set. Power naps are also very effective.
Describe a memorable character you played
In 2009, I played Cinderella in ‘Rogers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella’. I was fifteen and it was my first leading role in a play. It was also my first experience singing in front of a large crowd. The experience gave me the confidence boost I needed to fully throw myself into acting.
Photo by Curtis Scott Brown
Explain one creative choice you took on set
It is an actor’s job to always make the best creative choice, and the best creative choices are always the most honest ones. The more honest I am when I’m acting, the more creative I am. Once I was playing a daughter in an abusive relationship with her mother. As my mother was all I had in the world, my love for her was just as strong as my hate for her, and during rehearsal of the scene in which I retaliated against her abuse, I found myself kissing her cheek after nearly attacking her. She recoiled from my kiss as if I was burning her. The interaction worked fabulously, and the director made it apart of final blocking for performance.
What do you want most from a director
Collaboration. There is nothing worse than being hired onto a production and arriving on set only to find out you’ve been hired by someone who doesn’t want to let you do your job – you’ve built a character, a person, independent of your director based on the script and maybe a brief description of what he/she wants from you, but they don’t like any of what you do because it is not exactly how they envisioned it. It is intensely frustrating. A director needs to have a communicative relationship with his/her actors, and must be open to the actors’ creative choices and discussing his/her vision with them. Be open to collaborate, because the final piece will be much stronger for it.
What actors do you long to work with
I’ve wanted to work with the late Robin Williams ever since I watched ‘Patch Adams’ for the first time as a child. He was and continues to be an inspiration to me in my creative life.
Why
I remember watching his performances and thinking, “He makes me understand. I want to do that. I want to make people feel the way he makes me feel. I want to help them understand.”
What advice would you give to actors
Always be prepared, always take risks, and always tell the truth. Listen closely to your scene partners, be fully aware of them, share energy, never compromise and fight for what your character wants as if it is your own desire. Develop a thick skin. Learn how to take both constructive criticism and direct insult. And never let not being cast strike you as a failure. Many factors (age, height, creating the look of a ‘family’, etc.) play into casting and most of the time you couldn’t have done anything better to be hired. Yet always seek ways to improve.
Briefly write about your career
Truly, my career is still just getting started. I’ve been doing mostly independent and low-budget films and community theater. Most recently, I wrapped on the film AT EASE, directed by the talented Jacob Kirby and filmed in Marion, SC, and closed CARRIE: THE MUSICAL at City Stage Co. in Wilmington, NC, in which I had the immense pleasure of portraying the telekinetic outcast Carrie White. I’m working towards SAG-AFTRA eligibility and making acting my primary source of income. Currently a group of my friends and fellow actors/filmmakers (Jacob Keohane, Ross Helton and Nick Cocuzza, to name a few) and I are working on a project called HIGH CAROLINA, which will release a sketch comedy webseries and a theater production in 2015. I continually audition, hone my craft, and love my job.
