Daily Inspiration: Meet Elle O’Meara

Today we’d like to introduce you to Elle O’Meara.

Hi Elle, 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?
The Idea for Anchors started back in 2024. At the time I was roommates with Shino Nakamichi (plays Rachel in the show) and we had both moved to LA to get out of our home towns and pursue acting. We were both 18 at the time and neither of us knew anyone in the city. We quickly fell into a routine of working all day at our restaurant jobs, coming home and submitting a self tape, bed, repeat. After quite a few months of never having time to make friends and never having money because it all went towards rent we kind of started to think “What am I doing here?” One night Shino had the bright idea that we should write a show just to give us something to feel passionate about. I was immediately so excited and it instantly felt like my life had meaning again. We stayed up late every night jotting down funny ideas for a show, writing scenes, writing characters. Some days we would go to coffee shops and spend hours laughing, coming up with ideas for a show. After some time we realized we knew nobody in the city, we had no money, no connections. We had no way of actually making the show. Life moved on and for the next two years I’d think about the show or remember a funny line we wrote down and laugh to myself. In those two years we joined the most incredible acting studio (Deborah Lemen Acting Studio), we got booked for a few small acting roles here and there, met people in LA. One day I realized “wow I think I might know enough people and have just enough money saved up to make Anchors.” I immediately started reaching out to actors I knew and writing the screen play. Soon after I got a crew together and we all made it happen! Anchors was filmed on a four thousand dollar budget in 9 days. Every single person worked so hard and brought so many ideas to the table. This show is a reflection of the cringiest moments we all had in High School and also in growing up being a theater kid. I want Anchors to make people laugh but more importantly I want some 16 year old girl to relate to the characters in the show and give her the permission to laugh at herself, and not take the inevitable humiliation that comes with being a teenage girl too seriously. I remember watching the show PEN15 for the first time while I was in middle school and it genuinely felt like the writers of that show had somehow been stalking me, writing down weird things I was doing, and then putting it in the show. It also made me realize that one day I’d grow up and think it was all hilarious.

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?
We ran into a ton of obstacles while filming. Honestly one of the biggest obstacles we ran into was just trying to keep it together and not break character while being on such a tight filming schedule. We would have one location rented out for only a certain amount of hours and have like 4 or 5 scenes to get through in that time and just about every take someone would deliver a line so funny everyone would break and start laughing. I really think I casted the funniest people ever in the show and because of this we were always filming up until the very last minute to try and get a usable take.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I think truth is really all that matters when doing anything creative but especially with comedy. Almost everything in the show is a variation of something that really happened to one of us. I wanted it to have a current of painfully embarrassing truth throughout the entire show because I think some of the best comedy will hold up a mirror to things you don’t like about yourself and make you realize it’s not that serious.

Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
The best advice I’ve received and that I always try my best to listen to is- create simply for the enjoyment of creating something. My older brother Matt is a filmmaker and he has always been a great example of this for me to look up to. His entire life he has been making movies and he loves it more than anything so I wanted to go into the process of making Anchors with this in mind. I genuinely had my favorite people in the cast and crew of this project and every single second of creating anchors was so enjoyable and exciting for me. Even if zero people watch Anchors I will still feel a sense of success just because of how much fun I had making it with my friends.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.anchorsseries.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anchorsseries/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@anchorsseries