Life & Work with Trish Rainone Diluzio

Today we’d like to introduce you to Trish Rainone Diluzio

Hi Trish, 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 was a performer as a child. I danced jazz, tap, ballet, lyrical and song & dance in competitions. We travelled to Los Angeles for a competition and DisneyLand in California to perform when I was 12. I saw the cast and crew of the movie ‘Vegas Vacation’ starring Chevy Chase filming at our hotel and I was very intrigued. I grew up in a small town in Canada, and we were taught to become teachers, lawyers or steel workers. I was dreaming of a singing career. I wrote songs daily. I even made a music video and sent my tapes to record companies. I never heard back and realised I should stick with film. When I graduated, the entire assembly exploded with laughter when they heard I would be studying “film studies” at Carleton University. (Where James Cameron studied, and went on to make ‘Titanic.’ I figured it must be a great program, but they weren’t impressed!) I dropped out first year when I got homesick, moved back home, and studied Psychology and the behavioural sciences. There wasn’t anything even close to film available in my hometown at the time. I worked with children with various diagnoses like Autism and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. After a break-up, I managed a cafe for a year and then wondered why I was working so hard all day in a cafe when it wasn’t really my dream job. I liked coffee but I didn’t like managing 13 employees and running around grabbing change from the bank, extra items we had run out of at the grocery store, plunging the toilets because a customer clogged it and dealing with other daily obstacles. We brought in a new manager so we could take the cafe in a new direction. This was my out. I left the business and moved to Toronto to chase that dream I always had of being a filmmaker. I found roommates, part-time jobs, learned how to ride the bus and subway and found a talent agent. I went on auditions, read scripts, took classes and realised I enjoyed script writing, too. I started producing short films and then a hit comedy web-series and then feature films. I appeared on stage, commercials and on television. I’ve since had many roles in film wearing many hats, including leading roles in two comedy series, a billboard feature in Times Square and produced a Christmas movie that airs on Uptv! That sounds impressive in writing, but I always feel like I’m behind, there’s more I could do or could have done along the way. These and other accomplishments are goals I had only dreamed of when I first started. I have learned it’s never just uphill. My career feels very uncertain so I’m always finding new ways to pivot and incorporate creativity in my day-to-day routine. I have various interests. I run a film festival, I create and sell journals, I make content for social media and I instruct courses.

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?
One of my biggest obstacles is that I have trouble with words. I get really overwhelmed by the page when it’s just black and white and can see some words jumbled or backwards. I need to really edit my work and go over the pages with highlighters to see the words more clearly. I believe this is undiagnosed Dyslexia. There was a short time just after the Pandemic where I tried a bank job in my hometown to fit in to the mould and find something “steady.” It was absolutely not the job for me and confirmed my suspicions. I saw numbers backwards often and that is okay for me when I have time to edit and really go over my work. Alternately, when I had a long line-up at the bank and they urged me to be fast, a small mistake can cause huge customer distress. Huge distressed for me, as well. It wasn’t the job for me. I also tend to think of twenty things at once all the time. To establish success in the workplace, especially when doing an office position like producing or coordinating, I have learned systems that work for me. I need to create to-do lists. I need to cross-off items. Spreadsheets are my friend. Reminders on my calendar. If working from home, to avoid distractions, I set timers. I can’t check my phone, social media or take a break until the timer goes off. This allows me to sit and really focus and get my work completed accurately and attentively.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
My work generally centres around comedy. I create reels on Instagram with a fellow actor, Sarah Cleveland. We were first introduced by mutual friends online who thought we were so similar we could be twins or sisters. We put reels out each week on our page, @twinsforreel, that are created to bring the actor community together. There’s audition humor, a look at what being an actor can really be like. The ups and downs but all done with a comedic tone. I act in a series called Pink Is In on Tubi. It’s also on Bell Fibe TV, for those tuning in from Canada. If you’re in the UK, I believe you can rent it on Prime Video. It’s a comedy series and the movie is coming soon! I get to play the tough, Top Dog, prisoner. This is far from my real-life personality, so it’s a lot of fun to play. The scripts I write are mostly comedy, also. My instagram is mostly comedy. Some celebrity impressions. Mostly Britney Spears. I love Britney. I am an Elder Millennial and remember the first time I saw the Baby One More Time video. It’s like time stood still and she was the most beautiful and talented fellow teen girl I’d ever seen.

How do you think about luck?
I sometimes use these manifestation methods. I had a wish box when I started my career and threw every single goal in there. I was a girl from a small town with no film experience and no acting experience other than I guess a lucky, very quick, small appearance in a Trailer Park Boys movie as a Sunshine Girl. I put every dream I had for my career in that box and was living in Toronto a month later, free from the cafe, signed with an agent and on the road to everything else I’d dreamed of. I think about that sometimes and put wishes in a jar to this day. I think it’s just knowing what you want specifically and writing it down that sets it in motion. If you don’t know what you want, you might flip flop. When you write it down, you’re declaring it and the Universe is like, “Ohhhh so that’s what you want” and things start happening. That being said, I bought a lottery ticket last week on a whim and thought I would try some manifesting. I pictured winning a million dollars. I pictured it going into my account even! It, however, was not a winner. Manifesting has it’s limits!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.officialtrishrainone.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/trish.rainone/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/trishrainone1/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbpUFaqtc2dR1SX2rlVe1XA

Image Credits
Headshot: Alexa LeClair Photography