Today we’d like to introduce you to Jenna Zhu.
Hi Jenna, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
Well, I suppose you could say my journey began when I made it past the birth control my parents were using. In all seriousness, I was a surprise (but not a mistake, as I’ve heard it said) and came to my parents when they were still grad students in Canada. My grandparents offered to raise me in Beijing while they finished their degrees, and so that’s exactly what they did! I was so blessed to have spent my childhood there and then moved to Canada and then Texas shortly thereafter. I suppose the multicultural background led me to thinking that I could have a career in foreign affairs, and I actually interned at the State Department while I was studying abroad in Paris. During that time, my boss, a Foreign Service Officer, unexpectedly had to deal with a death in the family, and seeing that experience was a wake-up call to me that life is too short to not pursue your dreams. Because in looking back, I realized that the arts were what made me feel understood when adapting to new countries and foreign environments, and they had been a ubiquitous part of my life growing up.
I decided to charge ahead with no plan and moved to New York City and fell flat on my face, living the quintessential starving artist existence. I made bad theater, lived in an apartment with classical musicians, walked uptown when I didn’t have money for subway fare (or hopped the line if I was in a rush), held six part-time jobs at the same time, and loved every single minute of it. I always say it was the best thing I ever did and also the stupidest thing I ever did, and I have absolutely zero regrets about it. Fast forward to March 2020. I had done a show shortly before the pandemic began and ended up moving back home to Dallas the day before Broadway shut down. A month later, I called my friends and asked them to pack up my stuff and ship it to me, and I realized then that I needed to move to L.A. I had long held the dream of working in the movies, and I again had to take a leap of faith. It took about a year and a half before I finally made it over, but I have never looked back since. I’ve been in L.A. for two years and some change now, and I still feel like a newbie! But acting is a very inspiring and fulfilling career path, and I feel so grateful to be living the dream (as not dreamy as it can be sometimes, as my friend and I like to say!).
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Nope! Life is not a linear thing. I’ve been very fortunate to come up in a time when diverse talent is being nurtured, but it’s still not considered mainstream. I do a lot of equity work in arts spaces, and there is still a big gap between where we are and where we need to be. Dr. King (borrowing from Rev. Theodore Parker) frequently said that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” And as my dear friend and famous progressive activist Heather Booth corrected me, it doesn’t happen on its own. It only does so because people pull it towards justice.
I think not having a formal conservatory degree, I also had to seek and find information on my own quite a bit, which helped me to develop resilience and ingenuity. And in retrospect, I am forever thankful for having studied Political Science and Psychology in college, which really enriches and broadens the scope of my acting work. Accepting every challenge with “yes and” has opened me up to all of the possibilities, and I’ve come to see every obstacle as a gift and every piece of wisdom I’ve gained from overcoming them as an asset.
And I think finding your own voice is an important part of every artist’s journey, and it has been a pivotal part of mine. I spent a lot of time trying to fit a mold (which was always changing, by the way), and I finally decided to give it up and follow my own passion. It’s the only way to live an authentic life from the inside out, and it can never be taken away from you. I was listening to an interview with Brené Brown in which she said (paraphrasing here) that it isn’t about asking what you would do if you knew you couldn’t fail. It’s about asking what’s worth doing even if you fail. And I was surprised at how many colleagues told me they had artistic dreams (including an economist who said that he had wanted to be a conductor!) when I left my first job to pursue acting, and I do not take for granted how unreasonably lucky I am to be able to do what I love.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I think the scholarly approach I take to acting can be a bit idiosyncratic. Coming from a liberal arts background, I can be pretty ruthless in my quest for understanding. My current obsession is with a man named Nikolai Demidov, who was essentially Stanislavski’s right-hand man and was completely erased from acting history books for largely political reasons. His work has only recently been revived and translated from Russian, and I’m a huge fan of his approach. At the same time, as a practitioner rather than an academic, nobody wants to see your homework. Trust and faith are a huge part of letting go, and my spiritual practice plays the biggest role in helping me to find that sense of surrender and peace.
I’m also pretty frequently cast in comedies. I didn’t think I was funny for the longest time, and then all of a sudden, I was playing a bunch of comedic roles. I think part of it is that I love to laugh and have a good time (and am pretty easily amused), and I just want others to share in that joy, as well!
I’m also very proud of the work I do with animals. I’ve been a pet sitter for several years now and love to serve my community in that way, and I am also an aspiring wildlife conservationist! Climate change has done so much damage to natural ecosystems and flora and fauna populations, and it’s our job to make sure they still have a habitat to live in. I definitely plan to volunteer with the L.A. Zoo and Natural History Museum in the future.
And I absolutely love the new play/script development process! I adore collaborating with writers and directors and was an Acting Apprentice at the Actors Theatre of Louisville, which really fed that appetite. I tend to be the de facto dramaturg in the room, and I love pulling scripts apart and putting them back together again, which is the joy and blessing of a new play process.
Is there anyone you’d like to thank or give credit to?
I have so many people to thank! It truly takes a village. I have had so many wonderful teachers that I consider it an honor to have learned from. One of my first acting teachers, Jacques Connort, a director at the Comedie Française (whom I actually met that same summer in Paris!), was the first one to really encourage me on my path, and his belief in me helped to set me on the right trajectory. In NYC, I had the immense pleasure and privilege of studying with Kathleen McNenny, Austin Pendleton, Mercedes Ruehl, Christopher Bayes, Giles Foreman, Patsy Rodenburg, and the late greats Wynn Handman and Olympia Dukakis, among many others. In L.A., I grew tremendously from my studies with some incredible teachers, including Kate McGregor-Stewart, Gregory Berger-Sobeck, Hugh O’Gorman, Alexandra Billings, Larry Moss, Desean Terry, Ann Noble, Leigh Kilton-Smith, Robert d’Avanzo, Saxon Trainor, Jean-Louis Rodrigue and Kristof Konrad, Welker White and Damian Young, Faline England, and the late great Joanna Merlin (and it was an indescribable honor to be in her last class of students), and there are still so many more I want to learn from! Continuing education is a lifelong passion of mine, and it is a really rich life of the soul that you lead when you are nourished by your own creative pursuit.
My life coach is also essential to my growth. She was the first one to tell me that I needed to move to L.A. and pursue film/TV, instead of theater, and I would not be here today without her. My mentor is also someone who has supported me through thick and thin on this journey, and we still make an effort to call each other, even though he now lives in Denmark with his family!
I am so grateful to the many theaters in which I have worked that offered me non-acting jobs. It’s because of it that I have a holistic understanding of the storytelling process from soup to nuts and got to see some life-changing theater, which is hands-down the best way to learn. I also thank the fearless artists of Asian descent who came before me and have made my path possible. I have a bumper sticker on my car that says, “It’s an honor just to be Asian” (immortal words spoken by Sandra Oh at the 2019 Emmys) courtesy of East West Players (the longest-running Asian-American theatre company in the country!), and I am happy to say that, after many years of trying to hide who I am, I am finally and wholeheartedly proud of my heritage and how I represent my community with what I do. I love my reps who also fight for me, and they are such heroes.
And my friends and family! It’s astonishing who shows up for you in times of need, and I’m extraordinarily blessed to have a loving and supportive community that stands behind me to weather the storms of life and celebrate the good times together with. Every time I think I’ve hit rock bottom, there has always been someone who has reached out with a helping hand, a listening ear, and words of hope and encouragement, and I share in and completely credit my success to those who have walked with and supported me along the way.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.jennazhu.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/jennahanbingzhu
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/jenna.zhu
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/jennazhu
- Youtube: www.youtube.com/@jennahanbingzhu
- Other: https://maximumfun.org/episodes/magic-lessons-with-elizabeth-gilbert/episode-112-brene-brown-on-big-strong-magic/
Image Credits
Brian Brown Carol Rosegg Chris Love Bill Brymer Bahareh Ritter Walls Trimble Evie Lynn
