Today we’d like to introduce you to Brenna Coates
Hi Brenna, 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 grew up visiting my pops on film sets, running lines with him in the living room, and watching him on the TV wide-eyed next to my mom and sister. I was so, so shy as a young girl but I would completely light up on stage or at the chance to become someone else. I’ve lived in LA, Toronto, and New York, and I have performed on Off-Broadway and in films and TV. Most recently I have a movie coming up that films in Greece this Fall. There was never anything else for me; I was always going to be an actor. But what I didn’t predict were the ups and downs of it all and the incredible people I’ve met who have afforded me so much.
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?
Right after I graduated from college, I was cast in a play called The Wolves on Off-Broadway in NYC. Written by Sarah DeLappe, The Wolves garnered massive amounts of attention and accolades. We won a Drama Desk and an Obie Award for best ensemble, and the play was a Pulitzer Prize Finalist. In 2019, New York Times rated it as one of the best plays of the past decade. I was in my early 20’s and having the time of my life, all the while acutely aware of how lucky a thing it was. It was once The Wolves closed that I saw the other side of this career. My self-esteem can get rocked by rejections, and my days can sometimes feel very lonely and uncreative. So in a career as volatile as acting, I look to my family and friends. They’re there to celebrate not just the big things in my career but the little things as well, and they’re there to take me out for margaritas when a role doesn’t go my way. It’s the little things.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I’ve played rebels who kill the bad guy, I’ve played a soft-spoken therapist, I’ve played girls louder and tougher than me, I’ve played a tech genius… but what I’m most proud of are the life experiences I’ve gone through that enable me to empathize with so many different characters. I didn’t lock myself inside. I lived my life knowing that I’d be able to use it somehow, and I always will. I will always, always, always consider that the luckiest part of this job: we get to push the boundaries of what it means to be human and we get to live life to its absolute fullest, happiest, angriest, messiest and in its most expansive way.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brennxcoates/
Image Credits
Ben Cope
