Today we’d like to introduce you to Elizabeth Adams.
Elizabeth, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I was born in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1990. Then in 1995, my family moved to a small town in Southern Oregon where I grew up. Growing up in a small town is exactly what you can imagine, at times really pretty but overall boring. I was absurdly shy growing up, so being both shy and bored drove me to be creative. I taught myself how to whistle three different ways, how to do a great “Sean Connery” impression of him yelling at “Tebek”, or even teaching myself how to play the guitar. Yet, what I loved doing most of all was writing. I penned my first script (I’m not being pretentious, I literally had to handwrite it because I didn’t have the software) when I was fifteen. It was a cliche-ridden romcom following a group of high school students. Most of my high school experience was me acting in theater production and writing every chance I had.
I ended up College at Portland State University, where I majored in film and minored in theater. I would end up as an intern for Season 6 of Portlandia because of my school. This led me to getting to meet the legendary Lorne Michaels. He was gracious and kind, it made my year. I grew up watching a lot of Saturday Night Live, and it helped shape a lot of my humor and comedic sensibilities. Meeting him inspired me to write even more. Which was important as I had been in a car accident that led me to need back surgery. Writing was an outlet that I relied on to work through that pain.
In 2017, I made the leap from Portland, Oregon to Los Angeles. I debated it staying up north, but honestly, the rain and cold weather is only charming for so long. I do miss Powells and some other things but the move to LA was the best choice I could have made. I ended up working for a few ad places writing ads for silly products like knock-off a “poo pouri” among others. However, now I focus solely on feature film and television scripts.
Currently, I balance my time with professional projects and passion projects.
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?
I mentioned my car assident in the previous question. It happened quickly, where the back on my car was rammed into by a truck. I remember this because it happened on Memorial Day, and I saw that the driver plates were veteran’s plate and I was annoyed because I wouldn’t be able to be as mad at the driver because they’d served. However, when we pulled over a young teen jumped out the truck. He’d informed me it was his dad’s truck and I suddenly felt like it was okay to be mad. This kid messed up, I was in the right, but I had felt okay. So insurance would have taken care of it. I would just need to get my car fixed.
A few days later, I had gone to lunch with a friend. After lunch, I had stood up and couldn’t walk. I was stuck on a street corner freaked out because my own body had stopped being able to do what it’d always had done. I forced myself to walk a mile to a chiropractor. Her name is Dr. Blyss and besides having a very accurate name, she saved me. She got my pain levels down from 9 to a manageable 6. 6 is an awful number but after being in 9 for a few hours, six was amazing.
Dr. Blyss and her team were the reason I was able to survive through my internship at school. I would spend that entire summer on that back, trying to hide the amount of pain I was constantly in because I wanted to start my time in the entertainment world correctly. I was silly, looking back I probably shouldn’t have agreed to be carrying cases of waters, standing up for 14 hours, and everything else physical I did but I can’t really go back.
By that Thanksgiving, doctors agreed I’d need to have back surgery or risk permanent sciatic nerve damage. So I had the surgery. Two weeks later, I would take my final finals and graduate Portland State. Was it hard? Yes. I did, however, learn a lot. I learned that if I want something badly enough, I will go through hell and back to get it. I also learned that chiropractors are amazing people who don’t get nearly enough credit for how much pain relief they provide.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
I specialize in production freelancing and scriptwriting. If you’d like to see a full list of credentials you can always go to my website, elizabethdianeadams.com.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
Obviously, there is a bit of luck in the Entertainment business. If I hadn’t taken a specific writing class, I wouldn’t have met my friend who got me my internship. If I hadn’t applied for certain gigs, I wouldn’t have met certain people who would become both leads for other jobs but also my friends.
However, that bit of luck only gets you so far. At the end of the day, it’s about showing up, doing the work, and presenting confidence even if you don’t have any.
Contact Info:
- Website: ElizabethDianeAdams.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elizabeth_lemon_adams/
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