Today we’d like to introduce you to Carly Roland.
Carly, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I grew up amongst a supportive family but as the only one with artistic inhibitions. I first fell in love with ballet and danced for many years until I was injured, which made me refocus my creative energy into acting. I spent the first decade of my career working in New York and loved the collaborative, artistic community that New York brings. It’s a big city, but in many ways, the artistic world feels small. I eventually moved out to Los Angeles which broadened my path and gave me the resources to start working behind the screen, writing and producing as well. I’ve had the fortune of working with mentors through Women in Film, who were the catalyst to where I am now and, hopefully, where my work will head in the future.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
They say life is like a roller coaster, but I would say that it’s more like the ride at the carnival that throws you into the air, and then you sort of slam down. These last few years with the pandemic and strike have really been jarring and have added a new layer of “bumps” in the road. But I think my dancing career really prepared me for this when I was a teenager. I was use to the incredible amount of competition, the wins, the loses, the injuries, the setbacks. I’m used to things not going your way and still getting out of bed and prevailing. That prepared me for this world quite well. So, while I definitely have my down days or even periods, I’m a pretty tenacious artist. I’ve got extremely thick skin.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I’m a multi-hyphenate artist with a background in acting, writing and producing. I’m not really a one-trick pony, and I’m most proud of my capacity to invest in all these creative areas over the years and continue to grow and produce work that I am very proud of. I think sometimes multi-hyphenates can get looked down on and to an extent, I understand that. You often need to pour and invest yourself into one lane to be really, really good at something. But for me, I’ve found that over the years, my creative interests expand — and it would be a complete letdown if I didn’t explore that. At the end of the day, creative energy is all the same. In my line of work, you love telling stories, or you don’t. And so, I share the same love to telling story in a collaborative forum in front of and behind the camera. I get as much joy out of any role I’m in — whether in front of or behind the camera. I’m most proud of the work I’ve done behind the camera and my podcast Marginalized Murder: The Case of the 51. I spent two years investigating that case, and being able to bring about positive change for the victims and their families to be an ally has really changed my life and opened doors to other stories that can bring about great impact.
What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
That’s a hard one. I don’t have a crystal ball and with the rapid expansion of technology, it’s impossible really for anyone to say. It’s easy to be quite pessimistic about it and believe my industry will be hijacked by AI and other advanced technologies. But I’d like to hope that humanity values humans enough and the human condition to want to have real people tell stories. Not a machine that isn’t sentient. Maybe the advancements will force us to understand our own innate importance and what we bring to the table. It might help us transcend our limitations and current beliefs.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @officialcarlyroland
