“I was born to act. I am a product of a wild childhood. I used to jokingly say that I would’ve either become schizophrenic or an actress. I guess technically one doesn’t preclude the other. You just get paid to be emotionally malleable as an actress.
My parents split—amicably—when I was two-and-a-half. From that moment, until I found myself in New York City not knowing I was about to find my life’s vocation, I lived multiple lives. My mom and I lived in some of the most beautiful spots sunny California has to offer. We also lived in many permutations: a hilltop perch in Big Sur with an outdoor shower, which created my life-long obsession with outdoor showers, and also a white van with shag rug upholstery for a stint, a real tepee with a propane stove and two twin beds in Paradise, California, and a beautiful, glass-walled home in La Jolla with the most expansive view of the Pacific Ocean one could wish for. It had a flat rooftop on which I did one of my first DIY fashion shoots
With my dad, I lived in a big, white, waterfront house with a swimming pool and a tennis court flanked by the Gulf of Mexico. That’s where I learned to ride a bike. We went on summer European holidays to opulent places like Villa D’Este in Italy, getting to jump from the floating pool dock into Lake Como, and Hotel Schneider in Austria where I learned to ski in the winters. Fondue, wool blankets piled on in horse-drawn carriages, apple strudel by the fire, tasting Fernet Branca—baffled as to how adults could possibly like it.
As I write this, it strikes me that I was always near ever-shifting bodies of water. And that we are all to some degree, ever shifting bodies of water. Alas, I digress.
Back to acting finding me. And how I couldn’t do anything else. I was 13 when I was recruited from John Robert Powers modeling school in San Diego—yes, we did learn to walk in a straight line with books piled on top of our heads—to give modeling a go in the infamous Big Apple with the prestigious Elite Modeling Agency. Well, Elite Petite, as I am barely 5’5.” For context, if it’s not clear from the above, I used to be a hippie baby, however with a household with sufficient means to permit for European journey and an excellent training. What I used to be not was a seasoned New York child. So Manhattan was A LOT.
I had simply months earlier than taken my mother’s ebook, Richard Hittleman’s Yoga, off the shelf, grabbed her mat and proceeded to see what yoga—which my mother had at all times cherished—was all about. I had accomplished a Candida cleanse by age 12 and seen a wierd iridologist who instructed me that I in reality had blue eyes, not hazel, and that they have been my explicit shade of olive inexperienced as a result of my liver was poisonous. After a quick bout of terror that I used to be dying, my mother and I laughed it off. In case you’re fearful, my eyes are nonetheless hazel and my liver appears to be wonderful.
I used to be in New York for a few month, pounding the pavement, getting on subways within the incorrect course attempting to make it to ‘go-sees,’ portfolio in hand, on the lookout for a contemporary vegetable or a mountain to hike. I got here down with bronchitis and known as my Aunt Carol—of Let’s Make a Deal fame; she was the unique Vanna White—whom had been nice counsel to me prior to now. I mentioned ‘I don’t wish to quit on something’— I’m nonetheless like that—’however I don’t suppose this modeling factor is for me.’ She mentioned there was an appearing class in L.A. with a person by the title of Gene Bua, who she thought I’d love, and perhaps it was price a shot. Positive sufficient, I discovered myself in L.A. staying with Carol and my Uncle Mark for the summer season.
I enrolled in Gene’s chilly studying class within the San Fernando Valley. I’ll always remember the second it hit me—onstage with my pages in my hand and one other individual making their means by means of me, that I knew appearing was what I wished to do for the remainder of my life. I known as my dad and mom and professed my newfound ardour. To my shock, in all probability as a result of I used to be a way-too-serious child, they believed me and supported this loopy notion.
The remaining is historical past. I nonetheless dwell the lifetime of a nomad, uprooting on a second’s discover to fly to a different nook of the world, beckoning the alchemical means of turning my a number of personalities into artwork—to see the world by means of totally different eyes every time, even when they’re technically my very own hazel ones. And for that, my gratitude is past phrases.”