Check Out Allie Markova’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Allie Markova.

Hi Allie, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I’m Miss Burbank USA 2026, an award-winning screenwriter, and an actress. Six years ago, I moved to California to work as a funeral director and was almost immediately thrown into the COVID-19 pandemic. I helped families say goodbye during one of the most difficult periods of their lives. I sat through what must have been thousands of funerals and eulogies. You hear how much can fit inside one life, and how many stories there are that no one outside a family will ever know.

When I was a little girl, I dreamed of acting and writing. I was fascinated by old Hollywood. I used to sit alone on the playground reading about Shirley Temple, which makes it especially fun to look back now and realize I’ve hosted an Academy Awards after-party red carpet. Although I’m pretty outgoing today, I was shy for most of my life. I always had my nose in a book. I wanted to tell stories and be on screen, but for years I kept myself out of the running. I was afraid I wasn’t good enough, and even more afraid of trying, hearing no, and having my heart broken.

Working around death made it harder to pretend there would always be a better time. I realized that every time I told myself no, I was making absolutely sure the answer would be no. If I tried, at least there was a chance it could be yes.

I started with small modeling jobs. On one shoot, I worked with a photographer who had worked with Vogue. Modeling wasn’t quite the right fit for me, but he loved my personality and told me I should act. I told him I’d taken acting classes when I was younger to help with my shyness, but hadn’t pursued it since. He told me to get a headshot, make a profile, and see if Hollywood called. So I did. Within a year, I had an agent and a manager.

The acting jobs have been wonderfully varied. I’ve appeared in a Screambox horror series, a OneRepublic music video, and a national MobileX campaign as an ’80s dream girl. I also have a small part in a new Netflix series. I’ve gotten to attend some amazing red carpet events, host the red carpet at an official Academy Awards celebrity after-party, and host Babes in Toyland and the first Maxim Swim event. Meanwhile, getting brave enough to audition helped me get brave enough to share the stories I’d carried privately for years.

My screenplay Somebody’s Baby won the Special Jury Award at the Los Angeles Film Awards and seven awards at HorrorHound Film Festival, including Best Feature Screenplay and Judges’ Choice. It was also a semifinalist at the BAFTA-qualifying Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival. My second script, American Gothic, reached the semifinals of the 30th Annual Fade In Awards. Filmmakers Connect named me to its 2026 30 Under 30 list, and it’s been lovely to be welcomed by the horror community through Women in Horror, SGNL Magazine, and Horror Pop After Midnight.

Competing at Miss California USA was another experience I’m so glad I said yes to. I met women with extraordinary drive, working in all kinds of fields and devoted to causes close to their hearts. From the outside, it’s easy to reduce a pageant to bikinis and spray tans. I won’t pretend I don’t enjoy a good spray tan, but what stayed with me was how much these women cared about the communities they represented. They were beautiful in the way you could see onstage and in all the ways you learned about once you started talking to them.

That made me think more seriously about what I want to do as Miss Burbank. I have a habit of making another plan the moment I finish the last one, and I’ll always want to improve my work and follow my dreams. I also want to make sure some of that energy goes toward improving the community around me. The Burbank Chamber of Commerce has been incredibly gracious in embracing me, even when this summer’s health scares meant I had to back out of things I was excited about, including a ribbon-cutting. They made me feel that I belonged here through a difficult stretch. I’m especially excited to get involved with For Goodness Cakes, which helps children in foster care feel celebrated on their birthdays. Every child deserves the delight of knowing someone made a birthday cake just for them.

Right now? I’m writing my next screenplay, Missing Kimberly Clarke, and Burbank has already given me some extraordinary memories. I presented at the Burbank International Film Festival, took part in the city’s Jay Leno Day celebration, and appeared at Jodie Sweetin’s comedy pageant at the Lyric Hyperion. My David Lynch-inspired art was also featured at the Frida Cinema. I’m grateful to be invited into rooms like those, especially in a city with such a deep devotion to keeping film and television alive in Los Angeles. I want to contribute to that in every way I can.

I’ve walked the Maxim Hot 100 red carpet, and I’ve had my screenwriting covered by my hometown paper. I was just as thrilled by the paper. My grandfather would have been so proud to see it. I grew up in a multigenerational home with grandparents who gave up so much to give their family a better life. My grandmother had a second-grade education. My grandfather left a prestigious career overseas and worked in a factory here. The work made him sick, and he died young, but he remained one of the funniest, kindest, hardest-working people I’ve ever known. I try to carry those qualities into everything I do.

I think about the little girl who kept all her daydreams to herself, and I wish I could tell her she’s allowed to change the story. She can even change genres.

I’m so glad I did. I’m just getting started.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
As a first-generation American, I grew up with a strong sense that opportunity was something you had to earn every day. That gave me a work ethic I’m grateful for, but it also made it hard to be still. I’m usually happiest when I’m writing, auditioning, showing up for an event, or finding the next thing I can do. Even when something goes well, part of me is already thinking about what comes next.

This summer asked me to slow down. I had surgery less than two weeks before the Miss California USA competition, and I didn’t look or feel like myself onstage. I’d imagined that experience for so long, so it was hard to arrive under those circumstances. I’m still very proud that I competed. I showed up for something that mattered to me, even though it looked different from what I’d hoped.

Afterward came more health challenges and hospital visits. We’ve gotten to the bottom of things, and I’m okay, but it was a frightening few months. I couldn’t do nearly as much as I had planned. I missed time with friends and opportunities I would ordinarily have said yes to. For someone who loves making the most of her life, being unable to rely on her own energy was difficult to accept. I had to learn that resting when I needed to was part of getting back to that life.

I did finally let myself recover, including a few much-needed spa days and a nail appointment. But I also wrote from bed. Missing: Kimberly Clarke has been taking shape during this time, and I think some of the fear and uncertainty I felt found its way into the story. Writing gave me something to look forward to on days when I couldn’t do much else. I’m glad I kept going, even when the rest of my life had to move more slowly.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I’m an actress and a screenwriter drawn to stories that are beautiful, funny, and frightening in ways that feel uncomfortably familiar. I love the color and confidence of the ’80s and ’90s, and I love a character who looks as though she belongs in a romantic comedy until the world around her becomes a horror film. What interests me most is the person beneath the famous “final girl”:: what she knows, what she’s hiding, and what she does when nobody believes her. Sometimes there’s truly nothing more mysterious than a teenage girl. And, I think we can all relate to that part of life feeling horrifying.

I’ve studied acting, but I think there’s learning how to act and there’s learning how to live. I always think about Harrison Ford working as a carpenter before he played Han Solo. You believe Han knows his way around the Millennium Falcon. He seems like someone who’s had to fix things himself because he couldn’t afford to have them fixed. I can’t tell you how much of that came from Ford’s own life, but I believe the way it really looks like he lived it is what makes him unforgettable.

My cousin’s murder gave me an understanding of pain I would never have chosen, and I do draw on it when I act. But the people I’ve been lucky enough to love have taught me just as much. I’ve heard laughter at funerals, not because anyone had forgotten why they were there, but because someone remembered the person so vividly they couldn’t help it. That has stayed with me. Grief and joy don’t take turns as neatly as they do in a script. They live in the same person, sometimes in the same breath. When I play someone, I want to understand what they’ve lost and what still makes them laugh. That’s when they begin to feel alive to me.

What sets me apart is that I’ve known real tragedy, but I’ve also known people whose goodness was every bit as astonishing\. I’ve watched families find something to laugh about in the middle of a funeral. Ive seen people care for one another when they had almost nothing left to give. Those moments stay with me as strongly as the frightening ones. They’re why I want to make horror with people you love at its center. The danger matters more when you understand how much life they still have ahead of them.

I’m a physical artist, a writer, and an actress. All three ask me to enter a life other than my own and take it seriously. Charity asks something more difficult: to step out of the story I’m telling about myself and be useful in someone else’s. I’ve learned that you can’t always change what happens to a person, and you can’t always give them the ending they deserve. But you can pay attention. You can show up. There’s always room to be a part of something.

And when you are, even as a minor character, you can leave the story better than you found it.

How do you think about luck?
A lot of life comes down to luck. Hard work improves your chances, but it can’t guarantee that the right person will read your script at the right moment. Most artists I know work incredibly hard and spend a long time waiting for that moment. It takes both, and when they meet, it feels a little like lightning.

I’m lucky to have representation, and to have worked professionally as an actress. I’m proud of that, whether or not I ever become famous. But luck alone doesn’t get you through the door. You can’t sit at a soda shop in Hollywood waiting to be discovered. You audition and audition and audition. You hear “no” a hundred times, and you learn to come back without treating any one answer as a verdict on your life. You’ll never catch lightning if you stop going out in the rain.

As a writer, i’ve been very lucky to receive multiple awards, including best feature screenplay at horror hound film festival and special jury award at Los Angeles films. I was also recognized by filmmaker connect as a 30 under 30 filmmaker to watch 2026 . I’ve received two 7s on the Black List for my screenwriting. They came from hard work, and I’m working toward an 8. I can make the next draft better; I can’t choose the moment it reaches the right reader. Some of my 1980s and ’90s horror stories began years ago as short stories, before I knew how to write a screenplay or whether there would be an audience for them. I kept them, learned the craft, and watched the appetite for that kind of horror grow. Maybe the timing will be lucky. I intend to be ready if it is.

I feel lucky to live in Burbank, where Warner Bros., Disney, and Nickelodeon are part of the neighborhood. So much of the film and television I grew up loving was made here, and new work is being made every day. Living nearby doesn’t mean someone will hand me a part or make one of my scripts. But it does make the dream feel wonderfully real when I pass a studio gate on my way to an audition.

I’m lucky to be Miss Burbank USA to share a title with the late Debbie Reynolds and be a part of a community I genuinely love and admire. I’m lucky to make media in the media city. this is what I’ve always dreamed of.

Maybe one day lightning strikes. Until then, I’ll keep doing the work, and chasing storms with other dreamers.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://AllieMarkova.com
• Instagram: https://Instagram.com/alliemarkova
• Other: https://www.filmcon.net/post/30-under-30-2026