Meet Brittney Dorey of Almost Nowhere in Lake Balboa

Today we’d like to introduce you to Brittney Dorey.

Brittney, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Wow! That’s going waaaaay back but let’s go. I knew I wanted to be like the “T.V. people,” when I was eight years old. At that point, I didn’t really know where all the “T.V. people” went to get on T.V., I just knew I wanted to get there too. I would mimic the actors I saw on tv and my mind would race with excitement when I began to start creating worlds and characters of my own in my head.

When I was around 10 or 11 years old, my Mom and my step-Dad got me a Tyco Video Camera for Christmas. This was one of those small, child-friendly video cameras that plugged directly into the VCR and shot in black and white. That was when I really started having fun producing my own talk shows, commercials, and comedy sketches. I still have some of that footage. When I was 11, I visited my Uncle out in San Bernardino, California and it was then that I realized all of the people that were on T.V, were in Hollywood. It was then that I decided that one day, I too, was moving to Hollywood. I grew up in the small city of Hot Springs, Arkansas, and as you can imagine, there wasn’t a whole lot of opportunity for aspiring actors there. As soon as the internet became popular, I would look up as much as I could find to connect myself with Hollywood. My mom would take me to all the cattle calls that came through Little Rock or sometimes Dallas with the hopes that I would be that one in million others that would be seen and break into the industry.

Well, that never happened so I focused on playing sports through high school but as soon as I graduated, my focus was back on making my way to Hollywood. Finally! My Dad wasn’t very thrilled with my choice to put college on the back burner and it’s not like I wasn’t planning to go, it’s just that I wanted to move first so that I could finally start auditioning and be in the mix of things. I started working a fulltime job straight out of high school to save up the money to make my big move. At the time I was driving a Jeep Grand Cherokee that was about 12 years old so a frequent guest who stayed at the hotel I was working at, who was also a car salesmen, convinced me that I should have my engine rebuilt before I made the move since LA was a big city and I’d be doing a lot of driving. He had a friend that would give me a good deal on it so I agreed that it would be a smart decision.

During this time, I had already applied for a nursing school program out in California so that I could start once I arrived. I took my car to get fixed up the week before I was supposed to report to nursing school and that year, July 4th fell on a Monday and I was due at school on the following Tuesday. On the Friday before, when I was making my rounds to say goodbye to all my family and friends, my brand new oil pump on my car stopped working. It was just one of those fluke incidents but because it was July 4th weekend, the mechanic was not going to be back in his shop until after the long holiday weekend. This meant that I would miss the mandatory first day of nursing school and they would not excuse the absence. Being a person that believes things happen for a reason, I gathered myself and just decided that maybe it wasn’t quite time for me to go and I would just save up for another six months and try again at the top of the new year. Shortly after, I applied for and started working a second job, and by Dec. 27th, just before I was supposed to FINALLY head out to Hollywood again, I found out that I was pregnant! SERIOUSLY!?

There was absolutely no way, in my mind, that I was leaving home to chase my dreams with no education and a baby so I decided that I would stay at home until I had completed college and try it again later. After a wasted year in nursing school, I ended up attending Henderson State University where I studied Mass Media. It was there that I learned to shoot, edit and took some screenwriting courses. I was a part of the news team there and thought that if somehow I didn’t make it out of Arkansas that I could still be on T.V. and maybe do an entertainment segment on the local news. Hard news made me sad and If I couldn’t make it into the movies, at least I could talk about the stars who did. It was kind of my back-up plan in case some other crazy life event tried to get in my way again. 2010 was the start of my senior year of college. It was actually the 2nd semester of summer and I was taking advanced Spanish so that I could make sure and graduate on time the following Spring. It was that summer that once again, life tried to not only derail my Hollywood dream but kill me altogether.

On Thursday, July 27, 2010 I got a call from the emergency room that my Dad had been brought in because he was out of it. It turned out that his doctor prescribed him a new medication that did not agree with him. It was supposed to help him sleep, but it just made him sleepwalk…..and sleep-drive….and sleep-talk. By Friday he was released and returning to normal but still complained of a terrible headache. My daughter and I spent Saturday with him where he continued to complain of headaches and having “daymares”. (Nightmares while he was awake in the day) During one of our conversations, for the first time ever he told me to go after my dreams. My Dad was always so practical and he wanted me to pick a safe career path so I wouldn’t struggle financially but when I started telling him I was on track to graduate in May and I was thinking about reporting locally, he told me no. He told me I could be “more” and that I could be “international”.

Those words really gave me the courage and the strength to go after my dreams life never before and having my Dads support and belief meant everything. My Dad called me on my drive back to college on Sunday night, told me he loved me and on Monday, I received the worst call of my life. He was dead. Suicide. I was a hard-core Daddy’s girl and my heart was shattered into a million pieces. I knew the idea of me graduating college gave my Dad so much joy so I gathered those broken pieces, glued them in place and fought the darkness, the depression, the anxiety, the guilt, and all my pain and somehow managed, with the help of some compassionate teachers who let me turn work in late, graduate on time. In May of 2011, I walked across the stage and in June of 2011 my daughter and I finally made the BIG move to go after my dreams! Once I arrived in California, I was so incredibly eager to break in, as most actors are, that I got my headshots taken and signed up on all the recommended casting sites and sought representation immediately.

That didn’t really do much. My first job was fresh off the tail of an internship with Bunim-Murray Productions where I was a production assistant on “Kendall’s (YES Jenner) Sweet 16” which led to me working on “Khloe & Lamar 2”, which led to me working on “Keeping up with the Kardashians” season 7. I learned a lot about the production world during those jobs. When the show went on hiatus I was forced to take another position in retail to stay afloat. I HATED EVERY MINUTE OF IT. While I was grateful for the work to pay my bills, that position had nothing to do with any of my career goals so I quit after about 7 months in 2013 and took a more flexible position in catering that would allow me to continue to audition,….. which I was hardly doing anyways, or accept and acting job without having to call off. After months of nothing happening I realized that I had started my early life creating and producing and shooting my own projects in my living room and had now moved across the country with a dream God put in my heart and was now just sitting there waiting for someone else, to make me a part of their creation.

It was in November of 2015 and I was frustrated with all of the NOTHINGNESS that was happening and during my pouting, I heard God say, “Brittney why would I allow someone else to do for you, what I’ve created you to do for yourself?” That question was all I needed to hear. I realized that I was not only completely capable of writing stories and producing them, but I was created to do it. It was that very moment that I decided to go for it! I wrote the first five episodes of ALMOST NOWHERE, which is an episodic dramedy+musical, during my Christmas break back home and shot my first promo video in January of 2016. By the fall, I lead a fundraising campaign alongside my co-producer Maya Carpenter and Jason Mimms and raised nearly $10,000. I used that to shoot my first two episodes in the spring of 2017. I then ran another fundraiser in the fall of 2017 after bringing on a fantastic new producer and director, Irwin “Moon’ Miller and our lead cast members stepped up and got involved to help raise another $6,000 which allowed us to shoot two more episodes in 2018.

This year we were honored to be a part of the Pan African Film Festival where we were well received and then walked away with three wins at the Houston International Film Festival for best comedy writer, best TV comedy and best costume. There is still a lot more work to do on this series (Six more episodes worth) but I am determined to finish what I started and prayerfully am hoping to attract some more hands to help me complete it along the way as I use my own resources to do so in the meantime. It’s taken me two years to produce four episodes but right now I have a very prestigious goal to knock out the final six episodes in the next eight months! Pray it doesn’t kill me LOL. Production is hard and definitely a team sport and currently, I’m playing multiple position while hoping to attract more people to my team. I’m so blessed to be able to do this so I’m not complaining but I also won’t lie and say it doesn’t take every ounce of my mental, physical and spiritual strength to make it happen!

Has it been a smooth road?
OMG NO! What the heck is a smooth road anyways? I don’t remember what those are like! There have been numerous obstacles along the way. None of which are new to a person pursuing a dream. It just gets hard. There’s a lot of regrouping and trying to figure out if there is a better approach to break into this industry and you just get exhausted and frustrated a lot from trying to get it right but realizing over and over there is no “right” formula for this kind of thing. There is only success if you don’t give up and that requires mental toughness in an extremely mentally draining industry/atmosphere. One must learn to master themselves to make it out here. Another big struggle for me on a more personal level is being a single mom without a huge support system out here.

The Momming part came very naturally to me and my daughter, Peyton is THE BEST daughter ever and she deserves the best so one of the things I deal with from time to time is MOM-GUILT. The guilt that you’re not doing enough for you kid. I deal with the guilt of pursuing a dream and dwelling on what my child is possibly missing out on because of my pursuit of a dream that doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere. It’s not just me on this journey, it’s us. My finances have been all over the place for years because I try to keep a flexible, industry-friendly job. But a new school year comes up, Christmas comes around, her birthday comes around and there are all these events where I’m going to be spending more money than normal but there’s no extra money coming in. I get upset and curl into my ball and cry and pray, then I come out and somehow an extra gig will pop up that will allow me to get her everything she needs. God has somehow provided miraculously and mysteriously every step of my journey.

Last school year, funds were super tight and I was panicking because I couldn’t afford to take her school shopping. The week before school started I booked two additional last minute gigs, one tipped me $100, the client rehired me for another day the same week and tipped me $220. Then, after that event, I called a friend on my way home, telling her all about it and while we were on the phone praising God for good tips, I stopped at a gas station and found a $100 dollar bill lying by my feet when I stepped out of the car! So yes…..tons of struggles, tons of questioning if you’re doing the right thing but I’ve just learned to continue to lean on God and trust the dream He placed in my heart at eight years old because He just keeps on showing up and making a way.

Tell us about your business/company. What do you do, what do you specialize in, what are you known for, etc. What are you most proud of as a company? What sets you apart from others?
I think the thing that sets me apart from everyone else is that I’m simply ME! Goofy. Awkward. An open book who’s waaay too honest. Sometimes we fail to realize that our Superpower is in our individuality and the fact that no one else can be us. It just sucks that it seems to take us until we are 30+years old to finally begin to feel comfortable with being our authentic selves but I’m slowly getting there. I think something else that sets me apart that I believe people will be shocked to see is that my range in creativity spreads much further than comedy.

I started with ALMOST NOWHERE because I knew it would be the easiest to shoot independently on a micro budget but I am Sci-Fi, I am Supernatural, I am Fantasy, Mythology, Horror, Suspense Thriller. I enjoy them all and I am so excited to continue to climb so that I can unleash my Super creative powers on the world in the form of stories. I mean, I know it’s super early in my career to say all those things, but ALMOST NOWHERE is my launching pad and my floor to say to the industry, “Hey! I’m here and I belong.” And besides, I believe in boldly speaking things into existence as you know they already are in done in your heart.

Is our city a good place to do what you do?
I think LA is a fantastic city for many reasons. It’s extremely diverse and it is full of talented, ambitious, intelligent, hungry individuals from all walks of life to partner with or to build with. The hardest part about that is shuffling through all the crazies to find those good folks to do so with….but we are here! We is me! I’m still searching for more of my tribe as I know they are still searching for me! Hollywood gets a bad wrap but there are sooo many fantastic, good-hearted, genuine people who simply love what they do and do what they can to help others along the way.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.facebook.com/almostnowheretv
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: @BrittneyDorey @AlmostNowhereTV
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/almostnowheretv

Image Credit:
Yellow shirt – Moten Photography

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