About Me

Why, hello there!

This is the place where as an actor, I get to do what we're best known for: talking about themselves, because our egos are through the roof. (I'm totally kidding, not all of us are like that.)

Anyway, back to me.

I come from a small town in Maryland; the people within the town have “normal” jobs, “normal” lives, and “realistic” goals. These are the people who are completely content with living the same exact day for the rest of their lives. I was 17 when I decided that I wanted to be an actress, and it seemed like that I had created a storm of chaos with this simple decision. People with astronomical dreams and intense ambition don’t come from the town I have lived in my entire life. My high school guidance counselor said to me “Come on Lara, why don’t you choose a more realistic career?”; I will never forget that. I contemplated for hours trying to figure out what was unrealistic about my career choice. Was it because there is no guarantee of having a stable career? Was it because they thought that I didn’t have the ability to create a career in the industry? Or was it because I was the only person who even dared to try? My entire life, I felt like I was different in comparison to everyone I grew up with. I could never explain why I felt this way or what exactly it was that was different about me; I just knew there was something. It wasn’t until I played a ‘Who’ in Suessical: The Musical that I felt complete. In total, I probably spent about 10 minutes on stage. However, that first time on stage I finally felt like I wasn’t different, I was authentically me. While on stage, I had an unexplainable overwhelming feeling that I would be doing this for the rest of my life; I was going to be an actress. That happened my senior year of high school; a theatre department didn’t exist in my school, let alone my town until that year, 2015. Nobody believed that I could ever create a successful career in the acting industry, because anyone who has ever known me would describe me as the girl who didn’t talk much, reserved, and a loner. However, my first year in college, my acting teacher Dr. Ben Fisler said to me, “I’ve worked with hundreds of students who wanted to be an actor or actress, but I’ve never worked with an actress quite like you. You’re different. The only way I can explain it is, it’s like you’ve got a fire for a heart. Lara, whatever you do, please don’t let that fire burn out, because that fire is going to get you very far in this industry.”; I will never forget that either.

What people didn’t know is that when I was pushed into the background, I was paying attention to everything that was happening around me; I’d watch the people around me and how they behaved. I’ve always been curious about how and why a person is the person they are. Again, my high school guidance counselor told me if I had this interest I should go into psychology; maybe, because being a psychologist is more “realistic”. I wasn’t interested in the scientific explanation behind the behavior of a person. I was interested in the story, and how that story explains why a person behaves the way they do. I fell in love with theatre and performing. I fell in love with the stories behind each character I had the opportunity to play. I fell in love with the challenge that comes along with being an actress. I fell in love with the idea that it was my responsibility to bring a character to life, and my only guide was the slight outline of the character that was written in black ink in the dialogue. The character relies on me to tell their story. The character relies on me to bring their personality alive. The character relies on me to impact the audience with their words and actions. I’ve done my job correctly as an actress, if I impacted the audience in such a way that when they leave the theatre, they have a good reason to have a conversation about the story that was brought to life in front of their eyes. What I want to do as an actress is to tell a story to hundreds who want an escape from reality for just a few hours. To tell a story that doesn’t belong to me, but a story that belongs to the characters I play. As an actress, to have the ability to strip away everything that makes me the person I am within an instance, and become a completely different personality in front of someone’s eyes is beautifully fascinating to me. The way I bring a character to life is, as I read a script or play; I think critically about what the story is about, not what happens in the dialogue, but what it’s about. I have this system because acting is based on action, and I’ve learned that I can’t put the correct action into my character, if I don’t know what the story is about.

Entertainment means something to people, it means something to me. Imagine a world in which every form of entertainment disappeared; no music, plays, movies, comedians, sports, novels, or any other form of entertainment. It would be a boring world. Personally, my favorite form of entertainment is watching movies and tv; especially anything that falls into the action/adventure genre. The melodramatic storylines I’d watch constantly was the reason why I toyed with the idea of being an actress to begin with, because it looked like so much fun to me. The first time I had the opportunity to do stage combat was unforgettable; it was much more fun than I expected to be, and I felt unstoppable. These past few years I’ve learned the reason why being an entertainer is so important. People need an escape from their stressful everyday life, and entertainment is that escape for so many people. I want to be an actress, because I want to be that escape for people. If I could ever play a character that meant so much to a person, to play a character that would be someone’s excuse to escape from the dark for just a few hours, to be the person responsible for putting a smile on someone’s face. I want to be that person. I want to be that actress. I want to be that character. There is not much more I could ever ask for, if a character I play had that impact on just a few people, if I got to hold that responsibility.