I was looking at classes at the community college for accounting because that’s how much I love numbers. Then Vera directed her first film and asked me to star in it. This was nine years ago. She threw me in it to play the younger version of her character. That was my first acting experience. I said yes because she’s my older sister and I literally didn’t have a choice. She’s like, “you’re going to do this”. I’m like, “Cool. I get to not be home with my parents for two months in the summer. Sounds great.”
I loved being on set and the atmosphere of that set, I love the energy of the crew. I love being somebody else. I was a very super shy teenager. So being able to step into someone else’s shoes, it was like, oh, it’s not me, so I’m not the one that has to be embarrassed.
I went back to my normal life for six months and then Vera invited me–That’s when I looked at those accounting classes–but Vera invited me to go to Sundance. We premiered the movie, people were super interested in and talking about it and agents and producers were showing an interest in me and my performance, which is not something I ever expected. I thought, “Oh, this is a great experience. Done and done. I learned a lot, but I’m going to go over here.” Then Vera said, “Well, just try it. You enjoyed it. You’re getting good attention from it. Why don’t you see what happens?”
So I said, okay, I was 16 or 17 at the time. So I’m like, well, whatever, I don’t know what I’m doing. And then I booked a job and I fell in love with it more. I booked another job, fell in love with it more and all of a sudden it’s eight years later and now I feel like I can’t breathe if I didn’t have this. So I’m very lucky that the opportunity presented itself when it did. It’s been a lot of hard work in between, but that first door that was open really showed me what I needed for myself and I didn’t even know that I needed this creative outlet.
