Check Out Kali Racquel’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kali Racquel.

Kali, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I was drawn to storytelling from a very young age. I loved roleplaying and creating characters, letting my imagination run wild. And my father was my partner in crime in this. We made up songs together, the swing in the backyard was our train station where we would call out, “All aboard, ticket please.” The world was our stage and playground. But one day, my mother explained to me that my father wouldn’t be coming home. He wasn’t dead, he just wouldn’t be around anymore. My 5-year-old brain had trouble understanding this. It just didn’t make sense. Play and imagining was quickly replaced with responsibility as my younger sister was in the rocker and my grandmother’s memory was fading by the minute due to Alzheimer’s disease. The household was suddenly on uneven ground and my role was to help steady it. But I still dreamed of other roles. Whether it was me in a role on the screen or creating one for someone else. I knew I wanted to write and perform for a living, but I needed my family to be okay. I needed my mother to have peace and stability. If there was one thing I silently promised to her at that point, it was that she wouldn’t have to worry about me. I strove to make my mother proud and searched and searched for something that would show her I was going to be okay.

I tried soccer, dance and eventually discovered that I was an exceptionally fast runner. I became one of the top sprinters in the state of Missouri which led to me getting recruited by the University of Pennsylvania to run in college. My mother loved watching me run. And when I became a nationally ranked athlete, she loved even more to tell people how I might go to the Olympics one day. At the end of my junior year, I was strongly encouraged by my coaches to pursue a professional career in the sport. I didn’t necessarily see it for myself, but if I could do it, I knew it would bring my mother peace of mind. Her kid was alright. I decided to go after a pro running career, but as the universe would have it, two months into training my senior year, I had a career-ending injury. It was as if someone had pulled the rug from underneath me and I was in freefall, falling further and further away from who I knew myself to be. What I’ve come to realize is that this moment wasn’t a loss of identity but rather a regaining of one because the injury allowed me to slowly start the process of reconnecting with my love for story. And it was a slow process.

After I graduated, I found work as a program evaluator in the nonprofit sector and actually became pretty good at my job. I worked my way up to a director-level role at an organization in Philly and was soon to be promoted to a department head. But even though I was on track to purchase my first home and a six-figure salary was a promotion away, I didn’t feel that I was living my true purpose. So I started to dip my toe into things, keeping my comfy job while enrolling in acting classes, getting into the local theatre scene, and making a couple of short films. I came to realize that playing it safe wasn’t actually helping me or those I loved. And that even in what appears to be safe, there are no guarantees. So I quit my job and moved to LA to fully pursue my dreams of writing and acting. And four and a half years later, I still haven’t looked back. Oh, and my mom is really proud of me. Really proud.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I’ve come to find that the more I fear where I am and what I’m doing out of self-doubt, the greater the chance that I am exactly where I am supposed to be. The road is the smoothest when I stay on my course. Any time I make decisions based on self-doubt, the road gets bumpy. When I started to experience the inevitable “no’s” of auditioning, I got a job as an executive assistant at one of the top production companies in LA. I was being groomed by powerful Hollywood execs, I worked with celebrities all of the time, attended premieres and parties. It all seemed like the dream. But that year, I didn’t write one line of dialogue and submitted for zero auditions. I realized that I was merely a fly on the wall in these rooms watching everyone else living their dreams of writing, acting, producing, etc. So with their blessing, I quit. And I’ve been completely focused on developing my own projects ever since.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am a storyteller. A story is an understanding of something, whether it be yours or someone else’s. I consider myself to be a humanist and believe that all people, even the ones we ourselves have trouble understanding, have value. So my work largely explores various social issues especially those affecting black/brown communities and women. But with comedy at the forefront! There is a reason a good icebreaker is so effective at cutting tension in a room and opening people up. All you need is that first shared laugh. I am currently developing a dramedy that takes a hard look at the American public education system as well as a feature length project set at an all-girls school that examines the consequence of the male gaze even when there are no men around. As an actor, I recently had my feature film debut alongside Keith David and writer/director/star Justin Etheredge in the film Good which premiered at the Austin Film Festival.

We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
Success for me is genuinely being proud of myself. I think a lot of times we are looking and waiting for others to validate our efforts. For the longest time, I made life decisions based on what I thought would make others proud of me and make them see me as “successful”. And the keyword there is “see” because eventually you’ll find yourself left alone at the mirror. Only you can determine whether what you see before you is true or not, no one else has that power, only you. The more true I am to myself, the prouder I am of what I see. To me, there’s no greater success.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @kaliracquel

Image Credits
Stephanie Girard, Amani Minter