

Today we’d like to introduce you to Fawzia Mirza.
Fawzia, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I’m a queer, South Asian, Muslim, Canadian, American, She and They, artist and activist. That’s not just my identity. It’s also my favorite genre. I’m driven by a commitment to creating social change through art and comedy and helping others feel less alone in the world by sharing my personal stories.
But I wasn’t always an artist. I used to be a lawyer. I realized the depth of my love for performance during my third year of law school in my ‘Trial Advocacy’ class at Chicago-Kent College of Law. Trial Advocacy is basically a class about the rules of evidence in a courtroom (direct and cross examinations, opening and closing arguments, etc.). The professor for this class was also the coach for the Trial Advocacy Team at my school (which are trial competitions between different schools). I tried out for the team, made it and loved it. This encouraged me to take an acting class. I took it and loved it. I made myself a promise, then and there, that no matter what happened, I had to give acting a shot. I studied for the bar exam that summer, found out I passed and simultaneously started learning what it meant to be an actor while also lawyering and realizing the depth of what it meant to be a lawyer.
Eventually, I left the law and took a job doing sexual violence prevention performance work as my primary source of income. This took me to colleges and universities around the country and to military installations around the world educating through the power of comedy on rape culture. Simultaneously, I started writing because I didn’t see roles that reflected my community, my stories, my identities or me. And instead of waiting for someone else to write those roles, I decided to wrtie. And so writing, producing, acting in and creating my own work was empowering and life-changing for me. I started making short films and web series, and my first feature I co-wrote (with Lisa Donato), produced and starred in SIGNATURE MOVE went to SXSW in 2017. I got my first TV job in 2018 on CBS’ THE RED LINE, moved to LA from Chicago and have now been developing other TV projects and writing and developing features and I mean, there’s so much more to the journey and the path… but next time…
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
The path has been long and curvy and bumpy and obstacle-y, but the way to get to the other side is often to go through it… Being someone with such intersecting identities, it has been and continues to be a challenge to get people to understand that there is no “one size fits all” for my experiences and that none of my identities are a monolith– not Muslims, not South Asians, not women. And that means the storytelling is not singular, either. I feel the complexity is where it gets really beautiful. It’s also been challenging to navigate coming out as an artist when I was a lawyer and coming out as queer when everyone wanted me to be straight. Juggling those shifts of identity and career have required me to really dig deep and ask myself: What matters to me? What grounds me? What do I need to keep going? Who can I truly trust? What are my rituals?
Please tell us about Baby Daal Productions.
My mission is to tell stories and amplify other artists. Whether that’s through creating my own work, supporting the work of colleagues and collaborators or making connections, that’s what I love. I started a production company with my partner. It’s called BABY DAAL PRODUCTIONS (it’s a play off of my favorite food, “daal” or lentils — it also might be my drag name). Our first production is a queer, Muslim short film NOOR & LAYLA being shot in Toronto in 2020. We’re coming from a place of love and connection and aspirational collaboration.
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
I wouldn’t be able to do the work I do if it weren’t for my collaborators. My greatest supporters have been the women who have loved me, my best friend, Sonal, my ex-girlfriends/still best friends Jackie and Nabeela, my creative collaborator and her wife, Lisa Donato and Heather Nevill and my life and business partner and love, Andria Wilson Mirza. And then there are the co-conspirators in my creative like Ryan Logan who directed, edited, co-wrote with me, without whom my work would not have been what it is, or Amanda Clifford who DP’d all my early work or Mouzam Makkar who, as an actor has always trusted me and said, “Whatever you want to cast me in, I’ll be there.”
And, of course, there’s the film festival circuit, festivals like Outfest, Inside Out, Frameline which gave me a home, a platform, a community early on and now festivals like SXSW and TIFF and then there are people like Kim Yutani and Janet Pierson and Jenna Dufton who have championed my work. There’s the people at Catharsis Productions like Christian and Gale and Heather who helped me de-colonize my mind, find the power of comedy and to Brian Golden who helped me develop my one woman show. There’s Jennifer Reeder and the Chicago producing team behind my feature who were part of that life-changing film. There’s Chani and Sonya who helped me commit to myself and thus to life. There’s of course my moter, who has constantly inspired me. And there are many, many more names. And there will be many, many more. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Image Credit:
Ernesto Borges, Bradley Murray
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