Today we’d like to introduce you to Ariana González.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Ariana. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Where do I begin? Well, when I was in my fourth year of high school (which is Junior here, I believe) and we were doing career and aptitude tests and getting ready to choose your major for college majors and all that I realized that I wanted to perform. I had been in Flamenco classes and signing and music for most of my life and I had done school plays so I knew that I wanted a career in the Arts. Maybe communication or marketing, something like that. I hadn’t considered acting as a career, because it’s is not the kind of career one chooses in my country and our society, it’s out of the norm for sure. So I always thought of it more as a hobby. So I told my parents that I wanted to act and they sent me to a Summer Acting Intensive in New York for two weeks that summer. While I was there I knew that this is what I wanted to do with my life.
I wanted to be an actress and be in the entertainment industry. That intensive clicked something in me that made me realize that this is what I had always wanted. In signing my favorite thing to do was to figure out what the song meant, to who it was dedicated, to interpret the lyrics, basically, the acting of performing a song was my favorite thing, and I understood that after the intensive. I went back home and I started researching everything about the business. I wanted to know everything about the history of entertainment and theatre and film, I wanted to explore different techniques, all of it. I basically wanted to know everything that had to do with acting and most of all I wanted to perform. I wanted to explore characters and dissect plays and feel that rush of being on stage or onset.
After a lot of research and applications, I moved to New York after high school and I studied at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy. It was an amazing experience, being in such an intense program definitely deepened my love for this artform and formed me to be the actress I am today. I got to experience New York and Broadway as an artist and it was like living in a dream. Then after graduating with an Associate Degree in Acting, I worked for a few months in New York. I performed at the Broadway Comedy Club in Times Square, the off-broadway Theatre 315 amongst other places. But I wanted more, I wanted to continue my education, so I moved to Los Angeles and got my BFA in Performing Arts Acting from AMDA College and Conservatory for the Performing Arts. And after graduating I started to get a lot of work so I stayed here in LA and I’ve been here working ever since.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It definitely hasn’t. Because I am an immigrant I’ve had to deal with a lot of bumps in the road, especially coming from Venezuela. I moved in 2015 and since then things have been getting more and more complicated, dealing with our currency getting more devaluated by the second making it harder to obtain dollars and having to deal with a lot of Visa and Passport issues because there is no US Embassy in Venezuela. So honestly it’s been, and it still is very messy and stressful.
Aside from all of that, I’ve also had a lot of challenges in the entertainment industry. In this business we all face rejection and I’ve had my share of it because of being an immigrant, because of being Latina, because of being a woman and it has been very hard getting used to the idea that because I am those three things, I will have a harder time getting some parts and working with some companies. The bright side of it is that it has forced me to create my own content like other people are. I’ve been writing a lot in the hopes of developing those projects so I can star in them and make room for other individuals that are in the same situation as me. I’ve had to deal with typecasting a lot.
I’ve had many instances where I don’t look Latina enough but I don’t look caucasian enough either and I’m standing there “pero like what do you want me to do?” so that’s been definitely a big bump that I am still dealing with. But lately, I’ve been seeing a little more of inclusion for whitinas, which makes me happy. Because there is no one way that Latinx people look like, or sound like. There are afro-Latinx, which are also highly unrepresented, indigenous Latinx, whitinas like me, and slowly we are adding more representation of all of those people. And that doesn’t even compare to the bigger picture of how much Latinx and Hispanics are underrepresented in the industry as a whole. So yeah, there are a lot of struggles along the way and I know that there are more struggles to come but we all have difficulties when achieving our goals and the important part is not letting them stop you.
We’d love to hear more about your work. What are you most proud of, what are you known for?
Known for? I am known for speaking very very fast and always being the loudest person in the room. Just kidding, but it’s true though, what can I say I’m Venezuelan, hence I will speak very fast and be very loud. But in all seriousness, I am an actress and a writer y mucho mas. I can sing and I can dance. I do Improv and I love stage combat. So I am known for may things, which I like because I always considered myself as a very creative and multi-faceted individual, I love discovering new things and learning everything about them. I love knowledge, I am a big nerd and I’m proud of it. I’ve always been super interested in the history of theatre and film since I started my career.
I love watching classic films and series, reading old plays, as well as discovering new ones. To me is very important to recognize all of the artists that paved the way for us, which is why I always recommend people who are trying to get into the business to watch the classics and study them. You have to give credit where credit is due, and to me that comes from watching, reading and honoring all of the grates that made cinema and theatre what it is today. I am an actress first and that is my big passion, however, I have been getting into writing a lot. I’m currently working on a short film script that is very personal to me, as well as I’m learning about adaptation and IP for a story I would like to adapt. So that’s what I’m up to right now.
One of the projects I am most proud of? Uhm that’s hard. I’m gonna choose one theatre project and one film project. For theatre, it has to be Enter Stage Right, which is the play I perform at 24th Street Theatre. It’s part of the company’s Art Education Programs; we work with schools from all over LA and we teach kids about the magic of theatre through the play. The show has so many components to it, like improvisation, puppets, masks, sound, lights and lives music; we even have interactive video segments with the wonderful Jack Black, who is one of the board members in the company. It is such a fun play that we wrap up at the end with a beautiful heartfelt scene, where I play a 19th Century Mexican-American woman who stands up for her rights thanks to the help of her daughter (played by a student volunteer from the audience).
The scene shows the power of reading and the written word. I am so happy and honored to be in this production because it is impactful, timely and it really makes a difference. To so many kids we are their first introduction to theatre and live entertainment as a whole, and when they leave you to see how their life is changed. So many of them talk to me at the end and tell me they want to be actors or directors and it makes me so happy. I am deeply grateful to be a part of that production.
For the film, it’s the short film Polly Pocket that I did with my best friend and creative partner, Veronica Maccari. She wrote it and produced and together we starred in it. The film came from our desire to you a project of our own that we had total control for. I remember we were venting to each other one day about wanting to do something that we could share with the world and put out there for all to see because we both have starred in many projects that don’t get showed or submitted even though they were great projects.
So she emailed me a few days after with the first draft of the short, we worked on it and sent it to people for notes and met with people for advice and a month after that we had a producer, a director, and a whole crew and we were shooting it. I am beyond proud of the journey the film has taken. It has been selected for 14 Film Festivals as of right now, still waiting on more festivals to get back to us, and it’s won three awards including Honorable Mention at the Short+Sweet Hollywood Film Festival. It has been so fulfilling to see the project grow from its development to where it is now and to see how much love and support it has received.
What were you like growing up?
I was not an easy child. Very hyperactive and clumsy, like always all over the place. There is this phrase that it’s sort of like my tagline because I would say it every time I got in trouble or something happened. I would say “yo no sabia, fue sin querer, no fue mi culpa” which is “I didn’t know, I didn’t mean to, It wasn’t my fault”. And forever that is what I know for in my family. Every time I would spill a drink, or break something, whatever sort of trouble I made I would say that. And I think that comes to show that I was a very creative child. I was super artistic, always singing and dancing and creating. I loved playing with all of my toys in different ways than they were intended too.
Like a Teddy Bear could become a statue in the middle of the town that I created for my Polly Pockets and Barbies, I would grab all of my other toys and even furniture to create a whole city. I was a very active child so it was hard getting me to concentrate on one thing. I would always be daydreaming and creating new scenarios in my head, that’s why I loved dressing up and playing pretend as well, I enjoyed creating a new experience. I remember that when I was over at my grandma’s house I would grab an apron and a little notepad with a pen and play a waiter or a bartender; they have a bar with a bunch of bottles and glasses, it even has the section of the bar table that goes up for you to exit, if that makes sense, so I would go behind it and tell my grandpa to sit and that I was gonna fix him a drink and bring him his food.
And I would go to the kitchen and my grandma would give me the food and I would take it to him. I remember I would give him a receipt with my own handwriting and he would tip me. I had an awesome childhood. My parents were always very supportive of anything I wanted to try (and they still are). I was in flamenco for 8 years then I wanted to sing so they put me in a music conservatory and I learned piano and flute and then I wanted to learn guitar and they put me in guitar classes and sewing classes, swimming, football or soccer for you guys, Model UN and god know what else. I did so many things and I was able to explore and figure out what I really enjoyed and wanted to do. This is why when I said I wanted to act they sent me to a summer intensive in NY for 2 weeks to see if it was what I really wanted.
Contact Info:
- Website: arianagonzalez.me
- Instagram: @ari.gonza
- Facebook: @ArianaGonzalez53
- Twitter: @arigonzalez53
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