Under the Sea with Mermaid Down’s Alexandra Bokova

How does the decision to come to the United States come about? Was it easy to get here?
When I was 9 years old my mom remarried and I gained another dad, Gary. He is the coolest, is Irish American and even moved to Russia for my mom. Years later and for work-related reasons he considered moving back to the US. We decided as a family to stick together and come one come all. It was hard adjusting because I thought I knew America based on movies and music videos. Turns out that wasn’t the case. Also, schools in Russia, they teach us British English so I wasn’t equipped with the mandatory US slang. I didn’t fit in, to say the least. Moving to Silicon Valley suburbia from a city where we spent most of our childhood and lives outdoors, walking and on public transportation with no personal space, it was an adjustment. But I was always excited to be in the States and one step closer to Hollywood.

“I had the nerve to ask if they wanted me to do it again. They never called…”

Any interesting or funny stories about your journey in “Hollywood?”
I don’t even know where to begin. The advice I was given when I started going out for auditions in LA was that no matter what—keep going with the scene during an audition. No matter what, don’t act like you’ve made a mistake. So there I was auditioning for some horror commercial that required me to run from zombies.

When I walked into the tiny audition room I was caught off guard because there was no space to run. I didn’t let that deter me and started delivering the first lines. Without hesitation, I started running around in a circle back and forth, then realized it’s all wrong and I should probably stop so the camera could capture me. The more nervous I got the louder I delivered my lines. So I’m running in a circle, getting louder and out of breath then randomly stop in front of a wall parallel to the camera, still running and now screaming my lines into the wall. Everyone in the room was very relieved when that was over. I had the nerve to ask if they wanted me to do it again. They never called and I haven’t seen my ego since.