Portraits of the Valley

It’s more important to understand someone than to judge them. We think the first step to understanding someone is asking them the fundamental questions about who they are and how they became the person they are today. Understanding and empathy are essential building blocks for a better, more compassionate world. We’re incredibly fortunate to be able to ask these questions each week through our interview series. Below you’ll find inspiring interviews from in and around the Valley.

Sarahi Elguea

I started my Makeup career at 22 years old working for Bare Minerals in Burbank. I was with that company for two years before I went on to be a Mac Cosmetics Makeup Artist. I was with that company for almost 10 years. And I’m so grateful for the time I spent there. Read more>>

Sarah Gullixson

I was scouted as a model when I was 14, during the summer between my freshman year of high school and my sophomore year. At the time, I was being heavily bullied for being a redhead. I attended a fashion show when I was 14, where I was scouted by an editor from Vogue. That moment marked the beginning of my modeling career. Read more>>

Tetiana Zotova

I’m from Ukraine, and my life there took a few turns. I started as a singer and made it to the live shows in the final stage of the first season of X Factor Ukraine. Singing live on national television taught me more about nerves and discipline than anything since. After the show I chose a quieter path and went to study history. Read more>>

Nazar

Hello. My name is Nazar, and I’m originally from Paris, France, where my parents immigrated before I was born. I grew up in a disadvantaged neighborhood, and I’ve always had to work hard and fight for the things I wanted to accomplish in life. Read more>>

Buckley Sampson

I never set out to create a business around image. In many ways, Image by Buckley grew out of my own life in the entertainment industry and my desire to help actors understand something I had learned firsthand: how you present yourself can be just as important as the talent you bring into the room. Read more>>

Jessica Gonzalez

I’m Jessica Isabel, a Mexican-American mother of six and the founder of Glamour Bites Cart Co. I grew up in Commerce, California, watching my parents work hard to build a life for our family. Their example stayed with me, especially when I became a single mom of six kids and had to figure out what the next chapter of my own life would look like. Read more>>

J-Nu

From the dungeons of rap was born a low fidelity entity that only cried in white noise and would one day hum in a low peaceful frequency. Pacoima is a historical black neighborhood in the SFV, and it was this environment that shaped the sound maker into a warrior for the culture. Read more>>

Chenay Barnes

I’ve always been involved in entertainment from a young age. With a background in dance and years of studying the arts, I eventually became interested in learning more about production and everything that happens behind the scenes. When I broke into the Los Angeles entertainment industry, I made it a point to learn from every experience and every person I encountered. Read more>>

Joy Nadel

As a family we rescued a beautiful little Shih Tzu mix named ‘Candy the Wonder Dog’ who lived to be 21 years old. When she passed away, we spoke together {my husband and myself} and decided that we loved her so much and we wanted to share the fact that ‘rescue’ animals are so amazing and can offer such love. Read more>>

D’Anthony

I was born and raised in Indianapolis, IN. My parents actually named me D’Anthony combining their names Diane and Anthony trying to think of what would be a good name if their son became a musician. Read more>>

Austin Bradley

My name is Austin Bradley. I was born in Sylmar, California, and my journey into photography actually started during the COVID lockdowns. I used my stimulus check to pick up my first camera, and since then, I haven’t looked back. What started as something that could potentially be a hobby quickly became something I realized came naturally to me. Read more>>

Thaliyah Cools

I am originally from Dayton, OH and aside from your typical pre dance/kinder dance class at the age of 4, dance really started for me in a family setting. At family gatherings, my maternal cousins and I would create dance performances with full storylines for our family members to watch. Read more>>

Lynn Ferguson

After the LA fires, my husband Mark and I recognised that we were tired of feeling scared. and that the whole atmosphere of fear and threat and loneliness that we were becoming almost accustomed to in the city, and in the world in general, did not serve us. Read more>>

Garrett Pollack

Since I was a child, I’ve always dreamt big. If someone told me I wasn’t capable of achieving something, I made it my mission to prove them wrong. This sparked my love for acting when I was 12. I was told it was an impossible dream – so I went to an arts school in 7th and 8th grade where I studied theatre acting. Ultimately… Read more>>

Cyrus Maroofian

I think where I am today started way before I realized any of these things were connected, and honestly, it’s still evolving. My first word was “agua,” which is kind of funny now considering how much of my life revolves around water. Read more>>

Christopher Reyes

Well I got started when I was fifteen years old. I was just a kid running with the gang. The older gang members were tattooing all of us youngsters with a homemade tattoo machine. The kind of machine they use in prison. I fell in love with the craft and continued to tattoo from my mother’s house for the next five years. Read more>>

Caroline Morahan

I’m an Irish actress and television host. My move to Los Angeles was practically overnight. My boyfriend (now husband) invited me over for a long weekend to support a friend’s movie premiere. Six months later I had packed up my life in Ireland and moved. You could say it was a rash decision. But sometimes you just have to go with your gut! Read more>>

Amaya Hill

My journey has been anything but traditional. I grew up experiencing a lot of instability, moved around frequently, spent time in foster care, and became a mother at 17. I didn’t have a traditional roadmap for what my life or career was supposed to look like, so I had to figure a lot of it out as I went. I’ve always been creative, though. Read more>>

Issy Marina Barsallo Marciano Estremadoyro

Marciano and I, Issy Marina, began our journey in the food business in Lima, Peru, in 2014. We were among the early pioneers of plant-based food in Peru through our company, Marciano Vegano. Read more>>

Miller McCoy

I started in Los Angeles with a real interest in the intersection of culture, apparel, and the people behind the brands and artists I admired. Early on, I was doing a little bit of everything, creative direction, product development, styling, design, and figuring out how to turn an idea into something people actually wanted to wear. That eventually grew into Limitless MFG. Read more>>

Yeniffer Behrens

OUR STORY You have the talent. You have the dream. But what happens when the auditions stop, the callbacks disappear and you begin to wonder whether you truly belong in Hollywood? We know that feeling because we have lived it. Believing in yourself is the first step to becoming a working actor in Hollywood. Read more>>

Dr. Vinitha Thiyagarajan Upaassana

Coming from a super conservative ecosystem in India, I came to the US with a resolution to prove everyone wrong about me. As a woman who was often told what I couldn’t do and never allowed to chart my own path, I decided to rewrite the rules entirely. Read more>>

Matt Emert

I grew up about an hour east of Los Angeles before going to college for advertising at Boston University. Halloween and horror movies were always an obsession of mine, but I never had the motivation to pursue a career in film, so it remained a hobby… that is, until a very close friend of mine (and fellow horror lover), Tim Murdock, mentioned doing a podcast. Read more>>

Svetlana Tkachenko

My story with children’s entertainment started very early. Theater had been a big part of my life growing up, and I hosted my very first children’s party when I was only 14 years old. At the time, of course, I had no idea that something I started doing so young would eventually become my career and my own business. Read more>>

Lizzy Kay

Music has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember\. What started as a love for singing grew into a career that has allowed me to spend more than 20 years working professionally in the music industry\. Read more>>

Angela Torres

I’m a Filipina fireball, professional goofball and fun connoisseur originally from the San Francisco Bay Area. I was born in the Philippines and moved to the U.S. when I was three. Growing up, I was obsessed with Disney, musical theater and karaoke, and regularly forced my family and stuffed animals to watch my “performances.” Ironically, growing up I was painfully shy and insecure. Read more>>

Theresa & Seth Harding

Seth’s journey started from the Midwest on his way over to pursue a career in the entertainment industry. He was later introduced to the world of clowning and was hooked! He later introduced it to Theresa, (who had a real fear for clowns by the way) and the two found their passion for corporate and private party entertainment! Read more>>

Alejandra Torres

My story definitely didn’t start in fitness or with the dream of owning a Pilates studio. I graduated with my Bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice with a minor in Business Management and went on to work in the criminal justice field. Read more>>

Danielle Ciccone

I’ve always been drawn to understanding why people feel and behave the way they do, especially when their reactions don’t seem to make sense on the surface. That interest led me into psychology immediately after high school and eventually into my work as a therapist. It’s really the only work I’ve ever done, and it is a huge part of my identity. Read more>>

Kalid Hussein

I came to LA 10 years ago in the summer of 2016 from Minneapolis. After graduating from the University of Minnesota with a degree in Studies in Cinema and Media Culture I came to LA to join the film industry. Read more>>

Carter Benjamin

I grew up in the Cayman Islands as a kid until I moved to Washington DC in the 7th grade. My mom is from Cayman and my dad is from the DC area. Read more>>

Erik Nicolaisen

I’ve been painting murals since high school in Portland, Oregon. My best friend’s father owned a mural company, and he put us to work doing everything from coating out walls and cleaning brushes to assisting the artists on rickety suspended scaffolding. Read more>>

Ina Loaiza

My name is Ina Loaiza. I am an actress and producer based in Los Angeles. I was born in Chula Vista, California, and raised in Tijuana, Baja California. I fell in love with theater when I performed in my first play at nine years old. From that moment on, I never stopped acting. Read more>>

Tank Jones

I’m an Actor that also does Social Media Content on Fatherhood.. I used to do church plays and school plays as a middle schooler. Transitioned into film and television when I moved out to LA in the early 2000s and. I have over 65 film and TV credits to date. I’ve played everything from a 3-Star General to an escaped slave. Read more>>

Stephanie Romero

You know how some families go to church every Sunday? My family went to the movies. I’m an only child and have always been really close to my parents, so Sundays were our day together. We’d get brunch and then see a movie in the theater, every week without fail. I remember seeing Titanic, The Matrix, Armageddon, and The Truman Show in a dark theater. Read more>>

Tessa Lundgren

I’ve always been drawn to the art of acting and storytelling. Thankfully I grew up with the best siblings and we would build off of one another’s imaginations and put on performances and such. It definitely helped us make the best of a challenging childhood. In this, I learned how being creative helps heal the soul, create connection, and inspire action. Read more>>

Cesar Flores

I’ve spent nearly 20 years in telecommunications and IT. I started in customer service for a telecom reseller working with major carriers like AT&T and Verizon, then transitioned to Technical Operations. That’s where I got under the hood with everything from PRI and ISDN to VoIP and fiber internet. Read more>>

Fiona Simpson

I was introduced to art at a very young age, and I think I was always an artist. I grew up surrounded by creativity, with the sound of my father, a contemporary jazz artist, playing the piano, and the sight of my mother working on her art projects. Read more>>

Tomoka Morikawa

I’m originally from Japan, and I started dancing when I was 19. I didn’t grow up dancing, so I started later than a lot of people, but once I found dance, I completely fell in love with it. In 2021, I moved to Los Angeles on my own to seriously pursue my dream of becoming a professional dancer. Read more>>

Sonia Lee

I started as simply a weird little girl who really liked to draw. Its how I spent most of my free time growing up, which is funny looking back because I wasn’t even very good at it. Nevertheless, after while it became a huge part of my identity. Read more>>

Rachel Pineapple

I started out training to be a counselor. I have the Master’s degree in Education in Counseling to prove it. But somewhere along the way, I realized what I loved most wasn’t the counseling, it was the connection and the people. Marketing found me from there, building the story around a brand and getting people to care about it, and I never looked back. Read more>>

Anna Drubich

I grew up in Moscow (Russia) in a family that was deeply connected to cinema. My father, Sergey Solovyov, was a film director, and my mother, Tatyana Drubich, is an actress, so movies, scripts, actors, rehearsals and conversations about art were simply part of the atmosphere of my childhood. Music, however, became my own world very early. Read more>>

Rahul Sharma

I grew up in India and got into hardware early. After my engineering degree at NSIT Delhi, I started my first company, HatchnHack Solutions, in consumer electronics. We designed and sourced PCB and PCBA hardware for B2B clients, everything from a smart parking system startup to a firewall and network security company. Read more>>

Weston Walker-Pardee

It started with a completely ridiculous idea. I mean, seriously, who has the idea to start a theatre company in YOUR house when you’re barely 14 years old? Read more>>

Stephanie Rodriguez

Hi! I tell people I started on piano at 5 but started liking it around 10. This is when I became old enough to not want to quit and old enough to realize I could play whatever songs I wanted and didn’t have to just do the classical/workbook stuff. Read more>>

Rachel Shillander

I loved math, art, and science growing up, which lead me to pursue an education in architecture. Right out of high school I attended the University of Arizona, for my B.Arch, immediately followed by a M.Arch from UCLA. Straight from grad school I went to work for two of my teachers at UCLA, Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues of Ball Nogues Studio. Read more>>

Wanda Wen

Had a dream of opening a paper store, a space devoted to beauty & inspiration, and rooted in mindful living and daily gratitude. That dream came true in 1995, along with my late partner Grant Forsberg. Soolip, in Chinese loosely translates to ‘one’s life destiny is to seek wisdom’ and is my middle name. Read more>>

Jana Bunge

My start in the beauty industry began over three decades ago and has evolved from early experience with major cosmetic lines, to on location hair & makeup for red carpet events, television shows, film, photo shoots to my favorite…weddings! I’m honored to be part of the working beauty industry! Read more>>