Today we’d like to introduce you to Samia Mounts.
Hi Samia, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Thank you so much for having me! This is such a treat! I do a lot of things, but at my core, I am an actor and a singer. I’ve been singing and acting for as long as I can remember. My first performance for an audience was at a cousin’s wedding at age five. There were five hundred people in attendance, and when the band started playing my song, I told them they were playing it wrong and made them start over. I was quite the little diva!
My family moved around a lot, thanks to my father’s job serving as a JAG lawyer in the Air Force. I grew up mostly on an army post in Seoul, Korea, where I performed nonstop in school and community plays and musicals, as well as in countless USO concerts all over the country. I’ve always felt happiest behind a microphone or on a stage.
When I was ten, we moved here to LA for two and a half glorious years. That was my first taste of competing for work in a major market. With my parents’ help, I got myself some headshots, an agent and started auditioning. I saw my career blossoming before me! And I hadn’t hit puberty yet!
Then, the summer I turned 12, my parents dropped some big news: We were moving back to Seoul. During Christmas break. In the middle of my eighth-grade year. THEY WERE RUINING MY CAREER! I had a lot of very dramatic moments that year.
I didn’t know it at the time, but moving back to Seoul right at that moment set me up for the career I have now, working predominantly as a voice actor and session singer. In Korea, there is a huge market for native English speakers who can act and sing, thanks to the enormous influence American culture has on every industry there. We’re talking tons of work – and at the time, an extremely small talent pool.
I started working professionally in my freshman year of high school. When I graduated, my agent told me I could come back to Seoul any time I needed to make money, an offer I’ve taken him up on many times over the years, working for stints as short as four weeks and as long as 18 months.
I eventually made my way to New York City, where I lived and worked as an actor and singer for over a decade. By the time I moved to New York, I had 11 years of professional experience under my belt. I’ve voiced commercial campaigns for Kayak.com, Bud Light, and Infiniti, as well as single spots for countless other clients. I’ve worked on iconic shows like Pokémon, and I’m an award-winning audiobook narrator. I’m deeply grateful for the incredible opportunities that have come my way.
I also sang in lots of different bands, performed in lots of new musicals, did a bunch of side jobs, and generally worked my tuchus off. That’s what you have to do in New York to survive.
But I always knew I eventually wanted to get back to LA. The sunshine, the Pacific Ocean, and the laidback vibe here has called to my soul ever since being torn away at age 12. I finally moved here last fall, and it’s been an absolute dream. Since arriving, I’ve signed with a full line-up of new reps and have already started booking the high-profile animation and video game work I came here for. (It’s all under NDAs, so don’t ask me about it. But when it all starts to come out, it’s gonna be real cool!)
We actors are on strike for fair pay right now, so my on-camera aspirations are ever so slightly on hold until that resolves. But even with all the current struggles in the industry, an indie pilot I’m in, For Years to Come, has received screenings at three LA-based film festivals this summer (Dances With Films, OutFest, and HollyShorts). And this is just the beginning.
I’m so happy to be a part of the LA actor community, and I can’t wait to see what the future holds for me in this gorgeous town! I have a core philosophy that humans have a responsibility to uplift others, to help others, and I’ve found such a beautiful, supportive, encouraging culture in the artist community here. In New York, everything felt very cut-throat, and it can certainly be like that here as well – but the people I’ve been spending my time with just want to make great art and tell human stories. I love it here.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Are you kidding? My journey has been anything but smooth! This road has been struggle-bus central!
My first musical theatre conservatory program at the University of Arizona cut me after sophomore year. They told me to my face that in their professional opinion, I’d never be an actress – never! (Give yourself a squeeze if you caught the Chorus Line reference.) Getting cut from a conservatory program and being told I was “not professionally viable” was incredibly difficult to recover from. It took me years to regain my confidence in myself. I eventually ended up at the Boston Conservatory – a wonderful school – but it has taken me decades to have true faith in myself as an actor again.
And anyone who has worked the actor/singer grind in New York City knows that you spend more days feeling worthless and hopeless than not. That city beats you down in a million ways large and small. Burn-out is real.
Not to mention the pandemic, which was horrifying for my industry, as is the double strike happening right now.
But we are resilient – we will find our way to fair contracts with the studios and streamers, and we will get back to telling stories as soon as that happens.
A career in the arts means nonstop struggle and challenges, no matter how successful you become. That’s just the way it is. But the struggle is part of the beauty of this career choice. The struggle never ends, and that’s what makes it such a glorious achievement when you manage to stay in it for the long haul.
It also makes for great stories. 😉
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am a multi-hyphenate creative. I sing, I act in theatre and on-camera productions, as well as with my voice. I produce and direct vocals for children’s content projects, I cast voice-overs for children’s content and commercial projects, and I’m a writer, with multiple personal essays available online as well as a young adult novel, Frunk the Skunk, about a middle-school girl who makes sculptures out of found items. I’m proud to be able to do so many things at a professional level, and I want to keep expanding.
I think what sets me apart from others is how unique I am as a person and how unique my background is. I don’t know a single other half-Jordanian, queer, non-binary, polyamorous, pansexual person who grew up in Asia. Do you? 🙂
That unique perspective has given me such a deep capacity for questioning conventions and seeing through some of the ways our cultural norms harm and mislead us. I’m working on producing a podcast right now about how many people are living secret double lives because of societal stigma around unconventional sexual and romantic behaviors. It’s called closet/ed, and I’m really excited about it.
My last podcast, Make America Relate Again, featured me having respectful, compassionate conversations about politics with women who voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 election. Making that show was enlightening, to say the least, and it definitely increased my ability to be compassionate toward people I don’t agree with. It’s available wherever you get your podcasts.
What does success mean to you?
My personal definition of success includes financial independence, because I live in a capitalistic society, and I choose to participate in it. But it also means not compromising my values or my integrity and doing the things I love every day. It means making things that are important to me and that will hopefully leave a positive mark on our culture.
And for me, success also means doing all that while maintaining strong, loving relationships with the people closest to me. Life is too short to be all about work, even if your work is making art. Human beings are inherently social creatures. We need each other. I believe in always supporting and encouraging others toward the highest expression of their authentic selves, and calling people in rather than calling them out. I believe in casting judgments aside and choosing to see the best in others whenever possible. As artists, we have an enormous responsibility to accurately reflect the world we see – but also to demonstrate the world that could be. I take that very seriously.
If, on my deathbed, I can look back on a life that helped other people live more authentically and love themselves and others better – that would be the highest form of success I can imagine.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.samiamounts.com
- Instagram: @samia.mounts
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/samia.mounts.actor/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samia-mounts-52039913b/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBkJT8ttJYCyIS8ig6gZ7pA
- Other: http://www.samiaxi.com
Image Credits
Robert Michael Evans shot the Mad Honey, Live Singing, and Boudoir Shoot photos. Pavel Antonov shot the Samia XI at Brooklyn Bowl photo. Leslie Hassler shot the one of me in the fuzzy pink coat on the cobblestone street. Cameron Radice shot the headshot with the blue blazer.
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