Today we’d like to introduce you to Isabella Mercurio.
Hi Isabella, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I grew up the San Francisco Bay Area in a small town called Kensington. I started acting in the second grade when my teacher put on a play rendition of the book “She’s Wearing a Dead Bird on Her Head”. I was immediately hooked, and began participating in countless productions at my local theater (Contra Costa Civic Theater). Between the ages of about 7-12, I was in over 30 productions with CCCT, and also had the opportunity to perform with Berkeley Opera in their production of “The Tender Land”. These experiences all instilled a deep love of acting within me, but it wasn’t until I was about 13 that this love transformed into something that I needed to do with my life. I attended high school at Oakland School for the Arts with an emphasis in acting, then continued my studies at Chapman University where I received a BFA in Theatre Performance in 2021. Immediately after graduating college, I moved to Los Angeles and started taking acting classes. In 2023, I found my current coach, Amy Lyndon, who has been one of the most influential acting mentors I have ever had. Through Amy, I was able to find my incredible manager, Jackie, and I am immensely grateful for the opportunities I have found through them. That is one of the biggest lessons I have learned whilst trying to navigate my way through this very complicated, yet worth it, industry – the people on your team are SO important (this includes friends, family, teachers, mentors, other actors, etc.). Not just for success, but for staying sane!
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?
Yes and no. I feel very lucky to have had the opportunities I have had to act in the last several years since moving out to LA. Many of these projects happened due to the fact that so many of my friends I went to college with, that I work with at my day job, and from other areas of my life are in this industry as well. Quite a few of the projects I have been lucky enough to be a part of have been through these connections. For example, this summer I had the opportunity to act in a new found footage horror film that we shot in Oregon called “Mirror Image”. This film was written and directed by Sheen Faulconer – a great friend of mine who also happens to be one of my favorite collaborators. I love being able to create art with my friends, and am very grateful for the wonderful support system of other actors and creatives that I have in my life. That being said, I think I can speak for most other actors in a similar position to me (those who are doing the grind and just hoping for that one big project to come and change our lives) and say that this business can be brutal. All we want to do as actors is to act. With most other jobs, there is a clear list of steps towards getting to where you want to go. If you do the work, have the drive, and have the skillset necessary, you are likely to succeed. With this industry, it takes so much blind faith and hope that if you keep putting in the work that in that it will one day pay off; but there is no guarantee. I think this fact is also what is so beautiful about it, though. We love the art so much that we are willing to take that risk. So to answer your question, do I think the road has been smooth? No. But do I feel immensely lucky for the small and big wins along the way? Absolutely!
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
The first film I ever did, which holds a huge place in my heart, was “Allison’s Party”. We filmed the entire project in about ten days during the spring break of my senior year of college, and it was truly such a labor of love. It was my first time really being in a set environment, and I never wanted to leave. Even on days where I wasn’t filming a scene, I would just show up and watch the beautiful work being done by everyone involved. It was after this experience that I realized I wanted to transition from stage acting and start putting more of a focus into film. I moved to LA later that same year, and began doing a lot of background jobs. I honestly owe a lot to my time doing background, because when I finally got my first “big” role I already knew what a typical day on set might look like. In 2023, I was lucky enough to act in Colin Charles Dale’s short film “An Encounter on the Street” and throughout the last several years have worked on many sketches written and directed by my friends Amber Steigelfest and Samantha Georgette Reed at Archetypes Productions. In early 2024, I booked the lead role of Aria in Lifetime’s “A Deadly Threat to My Family”. A funny story about this is that when I first got to set I had ZERO idea that this was a Lifetime movie. I was just so excited to be a part of an indie feature; it wasn’t until everyone kept asking me on the first day “so… have you done any other Lifetime movies?” that I realized “wait, is that was this is??” Lol! Around this same time, I started doing more commercial work including a shoot for Samsung and many theme park/haunted house shoots with Christian and Morgan Duffy at Escape Visuals. My most recent project is “Mirror Image”, the horror feature film that I shot in Oregon this past summer. I don’t know if I have ever been this excited to see the final result of a project and cannot wait for everyone to see it. It’s going to be very spooky!
Any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general?
My biggest advice when it comes to finding a mentor is that not every class or every teacher is going to be the perfect fit for you. For example, I was a part of two different acting classes before I found my way to Amy Lyndon. Both were great classes that I absolutely learned things from, but neither felt like the perfect fit for me. For a while I questioned “do I not care enough?” “why I am I leaving all of these classes?”; but the second I found Amy I realized – “oh, the reason those other classes didn’t work out was because I was always meant to find this one”. There are SO many different acting classes in Los Angeles, so my biggest advice is to just keep looking until you find the one that feels right for you.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://imdb.me/isabellamercurio
- Instagram: bella_mercurio
Image Credits
Chris Jon Photography (for the main headshot)
Escape Visuals (for the red, scary screaming shot)
