Today we’d like to introduce you to Adrianne Owings
Hi Adrianne, 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?
My first love has always been the theater. I grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas where artistic opportunities are few and far between, at least compared to those of bigger cities, but I was always in an audition room or a dance class from a young age, constantly and fearlessly falling more and more in love with being onstage. My dad, a classically-trained guitarist-turned-lawyer, also instilled an affinity for music in me, so musical theater was the perfect confluence of all my earliest interests. I have distinct memories of learning the Hot Honey Rag dance from Chicago in my bedroom or belting out Rent’s “La Vie Boheme” as early as elementary school (sorry Mom!). I was eager to perform in any talent show, choir, or school play that would have me. I started performing at all the local theaters as well, filling up all of my time with rehearsals and shows, and I knew that somehow, performing would always be a part of my life. And I took to heart the motto of one of my directors, which was very influential in my early artistic journey: that the artist’s job is to “spread joy.”
I went on to Yale for my undergraduate degree where I initially thought I needed to pursue something more “serious” like law or international affairs. I spent my freshman year taking Arabic and economics classes while doing plays and musicals and touring the world with my jazz a cappella group, Redhot & Blue, on the side. But after a serious illness hit me at the top of sophomore year, I finally realized that I was still the happiest in the spotlight — in that regard, not much had changed since childhood. I promptly switched my major to Theater Studies and didn’t look back. I went on to do myriad productions and theater classes, even taking a semester abroad at the London Academy of Music & Dramatic Arts, where, thanks to the prevailing British attitudes towards theater and the daily practice of Shakespearean acting, I finally internalized the idea that acting was a craft to be taken very seriously in a way that I hadn’t before.
However, in my junior year, I also took a keen interest in film production and screenwriting classes, which led me to a summer internship in LA in development. I was fascinated by the entertainment industry — while I am an actress at heart, I’ve always had an affinity for business too, largely thanks to watching my parents own their business. Being an actress often feels like being so out of control of your own career, but by learning what goes on behind the camera (and in the boardrooms long before the project even materializes), I felt like I could regain some creative agency as a multi-hyphenate. I wrote a few scripts of my own and, after a brief stint in Boston during the pandemic where I did a remote internship at Gigantic Pictures, a documentary-focused production company in NYC, I finally made my way out to LA again in the summer of 2021.
Thanks to my work at Gigantic, I connected and started working with Josh Zeman, a documentary filmmaker and producer, mainly focused on distributing his existing films and series and developing new projects. One such project is CHECKPOINT ZOO, Zeman’s latest documentary feature about a zoo in Kharkiv, Ukraine that was evacuated at the start of the Russian invasion, on which I was honored to be an Associate Producer. The film, which premiered and won a 2nd place Audience Award at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival, was my first real foray into producing on a major scale and taught me so much about what goes into production. While I had never imagined myself in the documentary film world, my experience on this film, in particular, was incredibly transformative as a professional and a person — the heroes of our story are some of the most amazing people I’ve ever encountered, and to have a part in telling their story was something I will always cherish.
I’ve taken everything I’ve learned from working on these projects and put that knowledge into my own projects. I’m the President and Co-founder of End Quote Pictures (endquotepictures.com), an independent LA-based production company. The company, co-founded with my friend Jonathan Cañez in 2022, was born out of a simple need for more reel footage as actors, but it has blossomed into one of the most fulfilling creative endeavors I’ve undertaken thus far. We have primarily made short-form content that I helmed — our first project was a short film called THE WINE BOTTLE, which I wrote, directed, produced, and starred in. The film premiered at the 2022 Yale in Hollywood Festival, our first festival accolade as a company. Then, I directed and produced the short STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS, which was first screened at Regal LA Live. We’re also about to release a short film called MELTING ICE CREAM, directed by Ethan Greenlee, where I got to try my hand at being a Director of Photography.
Our next project in production is a narrative four-episode series called HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE. The series tells the story of a cast and crew of a community theater production of Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialist play No Exit, in which three characters realize they’re trapped in hell with no escape and only each other to speak to for the rest of eternity. On the night before this production of the play opens, there is a nuclear threat in the United States, forcing the group to shelter in place and reconcile their many, many differences — hence the name of the series. As an actress who has spent a good amount of time in community theater myself, I love the paradoxical nature of that kind of environment that lives on the fringes of high-profile success and the almost-ridiculous (although not totally ridiculous, right?) idea of a nuclear attack ending the world, which forces us to quickly reckon with all of these questions about the purpose of art and why we continue to make it amidst its many challenges. We’ve wrapped three episodes, finished the pilot and nearly the second episode, and are hoping to release the series within the year. Creating this series and the community that it has fostered has truly been one of the greatest joys of my career thus far.
And… that pretty much gets you up to speed on me — so far!
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?
Struggles? In a creative career? Nonsense!
In all seriousness, the road to my current position in my career has had its many peaks and valleys of course. Adjusting to the stress and constant demands of college life was something I never anticipated since I had been so independent and competent as a teenager. I went through a fair amount of self-discovery in my early twenties, whether I wanted to or not, and am constantly battling self-doubt, even in my comparatively much more peaceful life today. It really just comes with the territory I think. Like everyone, I was also very much thrown off course by the pandemic as a member of the ill-fated class of 2020, but it did force me to do a lot of introspection that I might have otherwise shrugged off amidst the busyness of post-grad life.
As you might’ve gathered from my description of my time in school above, I especially had a hard time taking an artistic career seriously — even though I personally couldn’t live without creating and performing, I was always afraid it wasn’t “serious” enough as a career. But anytime I have ventured into professional endeavors that lack that same kind of creativity, I am instantly miserable. I ultimately had to accept that art is a crucial element of everyone’s lives. When the doubt strikes me again, I think of the Ethan Hawke quote where he talks about thinking art is a luxury until you encounter grief or love or some monumental human emotion and then it is life-saving sustenance. I resonate with that so deeply as a consumer and creator of art and have realized in my work that storytelling, in all of its many forms, is the stuff of life. I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else, as hard as it may be to do it.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I do a little bit of everything — I’m an actress, director, producer, writer, singer, and more, depending on what I’m working on. On a given day, I’ll be doing some documentary work, writing a script, planning a shoot, making a pitch deck, filming a self-tape, and more; as you can guess, the work day never really ends. But I embrace the life of a multi-hyphenate, even though it can get overwhelming. I pride myself on my ability to take on any challenge that comes my way with grace, strength, and flexibility, and I am fully of the opinion that I’m capable of anything if I set my mind to it. I am interested in expanding my filmography and making feature films and full episodic series in the near future, but I would still love to take on the director-producer-actress-writer role as long as I possibly can when I’m on set. While I truly enjoy being an actress in others’ work, I feel really in my element when I can lead a team in bringing a project to life.
In my work, I’m interested in collaboration and storytelling through an empathetic lens. I have a distaste for ego, which may sound ironic coming from an actress, but I think so much creative work gets bogged down by an inability to work with others to serve the demands of the piece. I think this outlook comes from my time in the theater, where the harmony (or lack thereof) of an ensemble can make or break a show. I can be a team player, and I can be a star. I can lead a team to make my vision come to life, and I can respect and foster another person’s vision, even if it doesn’t align with my own in every way.
I’m interested in small, human stories that tell larger truths — washed-up actors stuck in a community theater, a group of friends who can’t open a wine bottle, two online gamers who form a strong bond from afar. That’s not to say I’m not interested in bigger stories — for instance, my first feature-length screenplay was a historical fiction about the assassin Gavro Princip who murdered Archduke Ferdinand and effectively began World War I, inspired by the research of my grandfather, a professor and Slavic historian; a big story, to say the least! — but as a creator and consumer, I always find myself gravitating towards nuance and subtlety. I’m interested in the roots of pain and sadness, of feminity, of violence, of power, of love, in all its many forms.
Alright so before we go can you talk to us a bit about how people can work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
I’m always available for freelance work as an actress, director, writer, and producer, and as a company, End Quote Pictures is officially open for business when it comes to production services. We’re happy to meet with any individual or business that has a creative need, whether it be a traditional commercial, a narrative film, UGC content, a documentary short, or much more. We have a rockstar crew who are consummate professionals in every sense of the word, and it’s a young, vibrant team who are just excited to create together.
If you’d like to contact me directly about a project, you can contact me via my website, adrianneowings.com. If you’d like to set up a free consultation with End Quote Pictures, you can email [email protected], and we’ll get the ball rolling. And if you’d just like to support, I’m active on my personal socials and our company socials, so follow me / us to stay tuned on all that we’re doing!
Contact Info:
- Website: Personal: https://www.adrianneowings.com/ | Company: https://www.endquotepictures.com/
- Instagram: Personal: https://www.instagram.com/adrowings/ | Company: https://www.instagram.com/endquotepictures/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/adrianneowings/
- Twitter: https://x.com/adr_owings
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@adrianneowings
Image Credits
ICR Photography
Ash Pales
Kayla Alise
Zoe Lee
