Today we’d like to introduce you to Della Saba.
Della, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I’m from London, so my understanding of acting came very much from theatre. At sixteen, I was accepted into the National Youth Theatre, where my training began. I then moved to New York to continue studying. After graduation and a few off-off broadway shows, I got my little butt over to Los Angeles. For the first couple of years, I was stumbling across projects through friends, random encounters and the internet. I went to Portugal and worked on a Ken McMullen film; I did a Greek film with him too, where I played Ismene from Antigone; I traveled, playing a nun, with a French director (who spoke no English), to Bahrain, Malaysia, Singapore and Dubai and got buried alive on an indie set in Nashville. Really, I was game for any opportunity to act and experience something new and exciting. Eventually, I joined a theatre company in LA (The Actors’ Gang), where we were creating our own experimental work based on Commedia del’ Arte.
One day, through a referral, I was able to meet with the amazing, Jamie Roberts from Disney Animation casting. This was my first big meeting and it was for voice-over, which I had never done. Timing was one hundred percent on my side, as they were looking for a girl to do the scratch work of the title role in “Moana”. I auditioned, booked the job and began working on it, on-and-off for about two years. I was working with Ron Clements and Jon Musker (directors of Aladdin and The Little Mermaid), so I was in good hands to learn this medium. Through that, they moved me onto Zootopia, where I played Young Judy Hopps for the actual film. This is the job that got me repped and opened up some new opportunities. Working in animation, also reignited my love for drawing, which is the other thing I do, and is something I am pursuing more and more.
I have just created my first zine called “The Adventures of Depressed Girl”. It’s a book of doodles, making light of the day-to-day struggles of this sad little super-hero. I don’t think I would have done this without going on the roller coaster of acting.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
I mainly specialize in voice-over, and I do a lot of acting and drawing too. My future goals involve combining the drawing with the voice-over, but I’m early days on this endeavour.
What were you like growing up?
I was a bit weird, highly sensitive and loved attention. Probably a very universal personality for someone who becomes an actor. At an earlier age, I think there was a fascination in the drama and expression of it all. One of my first plays I created with my friend, was based on Artaud’s “Theatre of Cruelty” and involved, blood, vomit and a lot of crying. Juxtapose this with the nice, all-girls English boarding school I was performing it in.
I’m really lucky I was exposed to a lot of European film, art, and theatre from a young age. My favorite actors growing up were Sally Hawkins (first time I saw her in Happy Go Lucky, I was INTO her), Emily Watson and Giulietta Masina. To me all these actors, though very grounded have a very child-like expressiveness to them. I like acting on film to feel like theatre, where it’s messy and not contained.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.della-saba.com
- Instagram: @dellasaba and @bydella
Image Credit:
Joey Schultz for the main image. Doodles are drawn by me, from “The Adventures of Depressed Girl”.
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