Check Out Yezmin Saad’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Yezmin Saad.

Hi Yezmin, 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 was born in Mexico City to a Lebanese Mexican family. My mother transmitted her love of film, theater, and the performing arts to me and my father his love of music. Both my parents are curious and passionate about Latin American and world history, art, and cultures, and I grew up immersed in a home where conversations revolved around these topics on a daily basis, especially on Sunday mornings, when we would sit at the breakfast table for two or three hours reading the newspaper and discussing what art exhibits, plays, concerts, or films were happening or playing around the city and we would be going to that day or in the upcoming days. Growing up in Mexico City was a blessing – the city is overflowing with a rich, complex history and culture – with influences from its very first inhabitants to the endless travelers, explorers, and migrants who have been captivated by its beauty and magic or who have found in it their home. I started to dance classical ballet when I was 4 years old with the Royal Academy of Dance curriculum and continued to dance until I moved abroad when I was 17. I grew up surrounded by family who have worked in the film industry for many decades and so since I was very young, I began to audition for and work in mostly short films and in some theater. My whole childhood and early adolescence, however, mostly revolved around dance – you know, it’s a discipline that permeated everything I did really, from what I ate, when I could or couldn’t hang out with my family and friends, when I would do schoolwork, etc. I’m really good at immersing my whole self into a discipline, so the greatest challenge for me has always been to find a healthy, sustainable, joyful balance. My journey from moving away from home at 17 to today includes two beautiful children, a degree in Women’s Studies and Politics, and a degree in Theater and Performing Arts, beautiful people who I have met and continue to meet along the journey and who are my family, and a relentless appetite and curiosity for life. 

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 am infinitely grateful for everything that has led me to where I am today because I am where I want to be. I have had a couple of moments in my life when I didn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, filled with pain, confusion, despair; moments which I would have never imagined would ultimately lead me to becoming hopefully a more grounded person, and to me completely pursuing the life that I want and that feels right. I think that it is the moments when you feel like you have lost most everything that you thought was yours, when you lose what is most dear to you in one way or another, those moments when I have felt like I have nothing else to lose, those moments have ultimately catapulted me to pursuing what I love, also because they have taught me how precious and delicate and temporary life is. We don’t get a second chance at living this life – this is it – and I do feel like I have been given a couple of second chances at life, so I don’t take it for granted. I want to make the best out of it while I am alive. 

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I wish I could say that I am a full-time actor paying for food, a roof over my head and a pillow, and my workshops, classes, self-tapes, bills, and life expenses from what I make doing what I love the most, which is performing and immersing myself completely in a character, play, in improvisation or in a production. Right now however, I am a disciplined, hard-working, devoted and curious student of plays, books, movies and performances. I’ve become proficient at auditioning via self-tape, and after months and months of survival through that pandemic and its consequences, as well as months of our actors’ strike and other of our fellow industry worker strikes, I am infinitely grateful to be here. I love training at the Groundlings. I loved training at, and the work of the Actors’ Gang in Commedia dell’arte. I love dancing with choreographer, dancer, and mentor Jamie Nichols, and getting to know new choreographers. I am a good open-ocean swimmer – I swim in the ocean every morning and that is an infinite source of life and solace to me. And to pay for food, gas, workshops, going to the movies and theater, and for my self-tapes when I go have them taped for me at my favorite spot in Hollywood, I rent bikes and surfboards in Santa Monica.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @__yezmin__

Image Credits
Matt Kallish
Bob Turton
Jim Grande