In a way I was also saying goodbye to a period in my life that I was ready to graduate from. The dreams I had in my early twenties had morphed in to something different. I had come to LA at eighteen years old starry eyed and naive like the hundreds of young girls before and after me. I dreamed of fame and figured it would only be a matter of a few months (or at least until I graduated from USC:) when I would be discovered and on the new hot television show. I eventually experienced the adversity as most young artists do, especially in a city as cut throat as LA. I was told I was too fat (which-okay, if you know me is honestly absurd-I mean I'm basically half little person), too ethnic, not ethnic enough, not "Lisa Ling" enough (that was when Ally Macbeal was hot of course) too young, not young enough, lacking TV credits-the list goes on and on. Once I was even told by a former acting coach (I think every actress in LA has at least one in their career the would like to call the biggest fucking asshole they have ever met and this is mine) "what are you anyway? half Indonesian? I don't even know what the hell that is. I mean--I appreciate that your parents homogenized you in to society, but..."
I really don't remember the rest, because after that, I tuned her out, walked to my car, got in and had hysterical nervous break down. (None of this is an exaggeration by the way).
Okay. Who says that?!
The most difficult part, of course was the fact that I've lived my whole life just being me. My mother is beautiful and Indonesian and moved to New York when she was five and is the most American person I know. My dad is butt white with blonde hair and blue eyes and from North Carolina. So yes- unfortunately I had no understanding why from a casting perspective I needed to be foreign because I was Eurasian.
I continued to persevere, however, mostly because my passion for acting and performing never weaned. Despite the ups and downs, I did get very close to booking a few notable TV spots here and there, shot a few independent films and a weird pilot or two, and was quite successful in the theatre world even starting a notable company named Workshop 360 with my closest friends and one of my favorite professors from college. Moreover, I never heard anything but positive feedback about the actual work I was doing, so I knew I had to be doing something right.
I refuse to be one of those people that knocks one city over another. I love LA. Always will. There is a part of my heart that will forever belong to California being lucky to have grown up in Northern and become a woman in Southern. But when I would ask myself: What do you really want?? The answer was clear as a bell. Theatre! Theatre! Theatre! This is what made me happiest. This is what I thrived in and had success in since the age of six. The stage was my home, and had been for as long as I could remember. I had dreamed of doing theatre in NYC since I had debated down to the wire between Tisch and the USC school of theatre at 17 yrs old. I finally had the opportunity to move to NY with the love of my life, a California boy who loved skiing and surfing quite possibly as much as me and was even more excited about living in Manhattan than I was.
My experience in NY has been so epic for the last year and a half, I seriously have to stop myself from gushing all day long. Craig and I are both madly in love with the big apple. For the obvious intoxicating reasons people call it the best city in the world, and also because everything I have dreamed of is finally happening. I spent so many years fighting to be seen and heard and I felt such a palpable difference the second I got to New York. Not to say the business is not not challenging because of course it is everywhere. But the biggest difference I discovered after getting to the right coast was the community of actors and artists that seemed to want to-gasp!-help one another, work together, make beautiful art together! Everyone was seemingly connected, especially in the Off Broadway world I was hoping to become a part of. My instincts were right: this was exactly where I needed to be.
So....doesn't look like we are leaving anytime soon. Stay tuned for more great things to come. :)
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