Daily Inspiration: Meet Cassidy Espinola

Today we’d like to introduce you to Cassidy Espinola

Hi Cassidy, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I grew up in a very small wine country town called Redwood Valley. It’s about 2.5 hours north of San Francisco. I started out modeling and commercial acting for Ford at a young age, (around 8), but stepped away from the industry as I entered high school to compete in sports and eventually went to college to pursue a business degree. After graduating college at Grand Canyon University and working a few different corporate jobs in Arizona, I was pretty unfulfilled by the corporate setting and reached back to my passion of being in front of the camera. I broke through to get representation in Arizona and as the joy of the work came back job by job, I wanted to do more and push myself further into acting and moved to LA. I was able to get a manager, Scott Copeland, who introduced me to Brand Models & Talent for representation and I’ve been fortunate to have book great jobs doing commercial acting, my favorite being my principal role for Coca-Cola Women’s March Madness. Even with those successes it only brought out my desire to act in film and television even more. To date, I’m blessed to have I have worked on 17 projects (8 features and 9 shorts) in the past two years, most have been lead roles which has had a significant impact on how much I have been able to learn and experience on set.

Personally, I live in a really lovely neighborhood called Belmont Shore in Long Beach. My husband and I are a one minute walk from the beach where we spend most of our free time with our angel rescue dog, Penny! When I’m not on set or at the beach, I can be found training at the local gym for Hyrox competitions or in school working towards getting my degree in Vet Tech with the dream of supporting animal rescue agencies in under resourced communities around the world, with initial efforts focused on animal needs in Southeast Asia.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
I kind of chuckled when I read that question. I’m more grateful than I can express for the opportunities I have been blessed with over the last 2 years – the people I’ve worked with, all I’ve learned and the chances to grow with the various roles have been awesome… but no, it has not been smooth. There has been a lot of tears, doubt, frustration, second guessing, and almost calling it quits. It is a long and hard road with so much rejection, and honestly feels as though there is no clear ladder or pathway to success in this industry. But my husband’s unwavering encouragement, a lot of praying, and my faith in God keeps me going!

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
My approach to this work is to seek out as many opportunities as I can to learn from others and give everything I have to make each project better in every way I can. I have studied different techniques from meisner, method, Ivana Chubback’s technique from Power of the Actor, to participating in ongoing scene study under David Coury’s instruction at Howard Fine Acting School, two intensive courses at Groundlings and great 1:1 coaching from my manager, Scott Copeland. Each of these challenges me to think in new ways, expand my “actors toolbox” and understand what it takes to connect with any type of character or scene and enjoy it all along the way – I’ve never laughed so much than I did at Groundlings improv!

When I first address a scene/script, I’ll select an analysis method to help build a solid foundation and organize the approach. Then, one of the most important things for me when I approach a character is finding where it lives inside of me, where it is alive inside of me (as David Coury says), and how I can relate to it. With that, I have really had to analyze myself: the good, the bad, and the ugly. For me, that’s often how I am able to bring the most authentic performance to the character.

*Sidebar upstart actor tip – I highly recommend the coldRead app for memorizing lines & self-tapes, this is a huge help to me and may be able to help others on larger scripts or when they can’t find a reader.

Something I’m grateful to have been able to showcase is the diverse range of characters I can bring to life, not only in action but in physical look as well. One of my favorite projects was a southern short film, Deadhorse Town directed by Steffi Harshberger, I was one of the leads and it was a period piece where I played a mid-twenties southern spit fire that loved to play pool – I am naturally very high energy and loved playing this character. From southerner, to the daughter of a wealthy mob boss doing combat scenes in Spades directed by Johnny Yong Bosch, the variety of roles and challenges have been a joy!

A challenge I loved in my two most recent films – both pitches for Lifetime Movie Network directed by Jared Cohn and produced/written by Michael DeVorzon – was incredibly emotionally demanding characters, crying on cue over and over in various parts of the stories. I learned there are so many different ways of getting to that emotional state, for some scenes I use method and for other scenes I have to use emotional recall, some scenes I don’t even think about crying and it just comes because its so real for me as the character. Especially for those emotionally demanding scenes I have to COMPLETELY relate to it or else my body just knows I am faking it.

In the first lead role with them was the psychotic villain and had a lot of fun kill scenes, but yet my character also had humanity in her because of the love she had for her grandma, so I really enjoyed being able to show the light in a dark character. Then the second lead role was the complete opposite, I was the loving wife and caring nurse! There was one morning I had to cry for 4 hours straight though, some of those scenes with Eric Roberts. After the end of the emotional scenes, he comes up to me and goes “Your fun to watch, kid, good job” and gives me a fist bump, that was awesome! I really have to thank Jared and my ongoing collaboration and coaching that I had with Michael on set. I learned so much from them as they gave me opportunities to grow.

Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
I have a lot of fond memories growing up – and this is all because of my amazing parents and two siblings. When I think about my childhood, it’s filled with so much adventure. Camping, white water rafting, ski trips, houseboat trips, playing hide and seek in the creek in our backyard with my brother and sister. I always thank my dad for how hard he worked to provide for our family so we could have the upbringing we did. I was (still am) a major bookworm, played a lot of basketball with my dad, and endless amounts of video games with my younger brother (I think star wars battlefront, x-men, and world of warcraft was our favorite). I also am lucky enough to have an amazing mom that drove me 2.5 hours to San Francisco 3-4 times a week for modeling shoots that I booked (Macy’s, pottery barn teen, Target, etc.,) We had a lot of fun together and would always do shopping and a pizza date afterwards. So I was a mix of a nerd, child model, and a little athlete surrounded by the best family in the world.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cassidy_espinola/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61571733718272&mibextid=wwXIfr&mibextid=wwXIfr

Image Credits
Marc Cartwright, Josue Pena, Dominic Petruzzi, Scott Copeland, Johnny Bosch, Mattias Alegro