Community Highlights: Meet Jennifer Lauren DiBella

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jennifer Lauren DiBella.

Hi Jennifer, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
When I was very young, I was mesmerized by the performances in ‘The Sound of Music’ and Mary Martin’s ‘Peter Pan’. I’d watch these tapes constantly! This led to my mom enrolling me in a Musical Theatre class. That’s where I fell in love with performing. I spent a lot of my childhood on stage and eventually landed in front of a camera. My passion for this business has always been much larger than I can describe!

As a native New Yorker, I am proud to have always had an East Coast hustle. No one in my family was in Entertainment so I was hungry to learn as much as I could as I went. My mother was there to help. As the boss of her business, she’d teach me marketing skills that I could apply to my acting career! I grew up on Long Island, NY which afforded me the easy commute into New York City to audition professionally. I started booking commercials and independent films around 12 , and had my first Broadway callback at 16. For college, I studied Performance at Fordham University at Lincoln Center and abroad at the London Dramatic Academy. Two months after I graduated, hungry for film and tv opportunities, I moved to LA. I started networking as soon as I landed and booked my first recurring role on Grey’s Anatomy during my second week in Los Angeles! (Thanks, Jamie!) In the years since, I’ve booked other roles on ABC, FOX and NBC, and various commercials. But in many ways, I’ve only just begun.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
This is one of the most difficult industries to pursue. Even though ‘the odds’ never phased me, I didn’t quite realize what starting out as an actor would feel like until I was living it. Yes, there’s a lot of rejection, but there are other lessons I had to learn as well. I would be ‘on avail’ or ‘pinned’ for a role, inevitably get my hopes up, and then be ‘released.’ Then there’s the hard lesson of getting ‘cut’ for the first time. It happens so often in both tv and film where your part simply does not make the final project. Try telling that to a waitress with zero dollars to her name, who thought this was the part that would ‘change everything!’ (Or at least let her quit her day job.) That waitress was me, and it happened to me… three times. I learned quickly that all of this comes with the territory! Every actor goes through it- and continues to go through it on some level. The tears, the stress, the panic attacks – why stick with it? Because every setback turned into a greater lesson and made me a more resilient actor- and human. I’m thankful for all of it. Call it blind belief or irrational passion, I’m in this for the long haul!

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I became an Acting Career Consultant in hopes to be the helping hand I wish I would have had when I started out as an actor. To date, I’ve helped actors update their materials, get meetings with agents/managers, navigate becoming Union, book through self-submissions, and get signed. I believe in the actors I work with. I want success for them as much as I want my own. That is what I am most proud of, and I believe that is what sets me apart.

I specialize in a business approach to your acting career. Actors know how to act. Many are unsure of how to go about networking and relationship building. That’s where I come in! I offer 60 minute Virtual Career Consulting Sessions and 60 and 30 minute Virtual Coaching Sessions. I also teach occasional Workshops. I love what I do and I’m so grateful to the actors who trust me with their baby: their dream! You can find out more and book a session through my website at www.jenniferlaurendibella.com/consulting.

What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?
Hard work pays off. There is a place for EVERYONE in this industry, but you have to want it and you have to work for it. KEEP GOING!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jenniferlaurendibella.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jendibella/
• Business Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jdactingconsultant/
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.me/jenniferlaurendibella

Image Credits
Bradford Rogne, Sami Matarante, Sami Hobbs