Life & Work with Alexa Rowe

Today we’d like to introduce you to Alexa Rowe.

Hi Alexa, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Whenever my mom was away when we were kids (for business trips or whatever else), my dad would have my sister and I make a home movie for her to watch when she got back. They always had the most fun/outrageous plots – we’d be like six and we were playing “good and evil” twins, doing magic, kidnapping and fighting the bad guy (usually played by my dad), and of course, always triumphing over evil. I became obsessed with how he did it – and when I was eight started using our own ancient little camcorder to make my own movies. Every time I’d have a sleepover with friends we’d make a murder mystery film (ft. ketchup for blood of course) or a music video to a new Jonas Brothers song (using our garage band instruments) 0r an evil scientist movie (food colouring in water for potions was a MUST). When I was in middle school, I started posting videos on YouTube and got really into improv and theatre in High School. I got my first acting agent when I was in University and did some acting gigs all throughout my time in Vancouver (a movie on Netflix, a Netflix commercial, even a pilot for a YTV show). I started making sketches and posting them online during uni but it wasn’t until 2020, when I was living in LA but could no longer attend Groundlings or make videos with friends because of the pandemic, that I first downloaded TikTok.

Of course, I had the same thought everyone else had when they first hear about TT “oh that weird app where kids dance?” but it turned out to be so much more! I started posting silly videos and for the first time in my life (thanks to TikTok’s algorithm and the way it pushes videos out to strangers) started gaining traction on my lil edits. Over the past few years, my two accounts sort of took off (one on which I started making sketches with a friend from Groundlings), and now combined have 100+ million views, 33+ million likes, and almost 400,000 followers. I’ve met so many incredible people (including some animators from Disney that I’m now working with on some side projects! Shoutout Mike Polvani and Dave Woodman!) and had so many new opportunities thanks to TikTok. I also still study at the Groundlings and just love to do anything with comedy/improv/general silliness.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
This has absolutely not been an easy ride 😀 there were YEARS (over a DECADE) where I’d post stuff online and basically get no traction. I’ve made soooo many BAD videos and felt so many times, “Wow, I suck at this”. But every artist knows – we often swing between a pendulum of God complex and crippling self-doubt, haha. And of course, all actors know the number of rejections we face on a day-to-day basis. But all that aside, I’d have to say the biggest obstacle I’ve faced so far in this process was immigration. I was born in Australia and have Canadian citizenship as well thanks to my parents – but I knew that if I really wanted to pursue acting/content, I needed to move to the hub – Los Angeles. Getting my green card to stay in LA was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. It took five years of school, and then another two years of work experience, followed by FOUR YEARS of living here and working to FINALLY have permanent residency (I JUST GOT IT THIS MARCH!!! YAY!!!) and now I can finally make money doing what I love. But my friends who watched me go through this know the absolute suffering it caused me – the COUNTLESS nights of crying, the crippling anxiety, and the impossibly long wait. But we did it baby! WE OUT HERE!!

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
My biggest thing would have to be comedy/improv. I aDORE being a *d**t, truly. As a kid, my favourite thing to do in the entire world was play pretend. We watched a LOT of Pride and Prejudice as kids (the 8-hour BBC version of course – we’re not f*ck*ng around here) – and that was a classic game we loved to play (cut to us bouncing up and down in my mom’s parked car pretending we were in a carriage on the way to our latest ball). We played horses, mermaids, and of course, house – but we always had to up the stakes (the buffalos were coming to get the horses, the rent was due, we were always seconds away from getting evicted, you know, normal kid stuff), etc. I knew that it was the one thing I always always wanted to do. Play. And I find that improv/acting is the “adult”, “socially acceptable” form of that. Watching a room of people in their late 20s – late 30s run around pretending to be squirrels (an actual visual I have from a Groundlings class) fills me with an elation I can’t express! The videos that I make now are usually improv sketches or just ridiculous commentary about something silly. A lot of my acting gigs in the past also centered around comedy. My greatest joy is connecting to that inner kid, keeping her alive and well. I think the happiest people in life know just how to do that, and aren’t afraid of what other people will think about them for being silly.

Do you have any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
This is so tough. I have so many! But honestly, most of them come from the feeling of freedom/joy when we were just playing. Running around in thunderstorms. Lost in an infinitely complex game of Dolphins at the hotel pool in Thailand. Making movies with my sister and our best friends in the heat of a Colorado summer (we spent 10 years here as kids). The intensity of all those new experiences, getting wickedly lost in our imagination, are some of my most cherished memories. My mom used to say she could put us in an empty room with just a box of packing peanuts, and we’d find a way to make it into a game for hours. I never want to lose that part of myself, and I think that’s a big driver for me in pursuing comedy/acting.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.alexarowe.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alexarowe11/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alexarowe11/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/alexarowe11
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCFRgWxLFIU3tPulDGfIxOA
• Other: https://linktr.ee/alexarowe