Today we’d like to introduce you to Sheena Leigh Graves.
Hi Sheena Leigh , we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I guess it all kind of came together when I moved into The Riverside Rancho, a pretty little western pocket where the Burbank/Glendale borders meet, back in 2016. My neighbors were out on the street walking their PONIES! “I don’t understand”, I remember thinking. I hadn’t expected to find a horse community in the middle of such a big city. I came down from a small rodeo town in Washington State to go to college, spending some time at Fullerton JC before deciding to transfer to Chapman University, where I majored in Performing Arts and minored in Creative Writing and Anthropology.
I still rode horses a couple of times a year when I would go home to visit family but never had I imagined making a career out of that thrill here in LA. Having discovered what I had access to, my aunt gifted me 5 weeks of lessons to see if I really wanted to make my childhood dreams come true. Those five weeks came and went, and all of a sudden, I was the class assistant. At the time, HBO’s Westworld was becoming wildly popular. THAT was the show, type of show I wanted to be cast in. I said that aloud and often. And then I was working for Scott Perez, the Wrangler FOR Westworld. It was a pretty exciting time, getting those first little riding jobs on set. I remember feeling nervous with imposter syndrome but at the same time, filled with that type of joy you get when you are truly having fun.
When covid set in, I was just learning how to drive the old wagons and had gotten my first horse, Whiskey, a bay paint roan Quarter Horse. Auditions stopped, riding jobs stopped, but I was fortunate to have access to the 50+ miles of trails Griffith Park has to offer. It’s such a beautifully unique thing to ride a horse deep into parts of Griffith where you don’t see the city of Los Angeles surrounding you.
Now that things are up and filming again, I am right back at it, training as much as I can as there’s always something to learn. Got another few weeks of wagon driving under my belt, rode on Perry Mason S2 and The Lincoln Lawyer, and finally began to audition for network tv. And I am definitely having a lot of fun.
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?
There has been a lot of heartache along the way, although now I am fully aware that all those growing pains rewarded me in a roundabout way. I lost my mother to cancer when I was 25 before I even thought to think of her as someone separate than ‘just my mom’. I often wonder what she aspired to become or achieve before she became a single mother to my younger brother and me, like, what did she daydream about, you know? My father passed away seven years later full of regrets. Both losses brought me back to my hometown for a while, and I had to kind of restart each time I returned to LA. But being in that type of grief, learning to become comfortable with the uncomfortable and just being able to sit in that made me see that it’s not about feeling better, it’s about getting better at feeling. And when you can really get curious in a feeling, I think it’ll show you something really beautiful. I mean most humans don’t even want to talk about their feelings, let alone play with their feelings. And I find it fun.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Well, I am an actor. I was a drama club member, a lot of musical theatre roots. After University I spent eight weeks participating in South Coast Repertory Theatre’s Professional Acting program and have since been hired by the Tony Award-winning theatre for several staged play readings and improvisational events. Although I will always feel pulled to the palpable energy of being on stage, I sure would love to be able to work on a period series, preferably a Western with the horses I’m so familiar with. That would be a fun, full circle. I just recently worked on a true crime series and was lucky to have booked a few commercials during covid that are finally airing!
Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
My friend Tarrah Barbour and I are currently working on a docu-series called Hardly Stable. It’s kind of mix between the history of The Riverside Rancho with all its kooky characters and the constant struggle the neighborhood has with developers wanting to tear down the last public barns and trails to put up condos and office buildings. We’re losing such a gem of the city, little by little. There is no where else in the world like The Rancho, a unique horse community nestled in the middle of the most populous city in California, the second-most populous city in the US, with direct access to the US’s largest urban-wilderness municipal park. Our hope is by capturing and sharing these stories, we’ll be able to influence others to want to protect and preserve this historic area of LA. If you’re interested in learning more about our fight, you can visit www.change.org/p/save-the-burbank-rancho and saveglendaleriversiderancho.com.
Contact Info:
- Website: sheenaleighgraves.com
- Instagram: @_thecowboyqueen
Image Credits
Brett Long Tula Goodman
