Meet Ella Gabriel

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ella Gabriel.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Ella. So, let’s start at the beginning, and we can move on from there.
I’m currently based in Los Angeles where I’ve been living and working as a queer South African writer, actor, and producer since 2014. I arrived at this point by way of a series of butterfly-effect-like decisions, curveballs, and strokes of luck. I would not have begun creative producing were it not for the fact that I’d accumulated experience developing screenplays as a writer. I would not have begun writing had I not fallen horribly ill in my first year in the US, been bed-ridden for eight months, and delved deep into every screenwriting book I could get my hands on.

I wouldn’t have fallen so ill if I hadn’t hit the ground sprinting when I arrived in Los Angeles as an over-eager over-achiever (otherwise known as a trained actor with a fatally impractical vision for “making it” in Hollywood). I wouldn’t have been so over-eager were it not for a slightly premature career peak in my home country’s theatre industry following four grueling years of intensive actor training and forced feminization as a result of my own deeply ingrained homophobia and anti-butch attitudes.

I’d not have pursued this “leading lady” acting career if I hadn’t shown promise in high school, which would not have been the case if my secret-lover-high-school-sweetheart hadn’t dropped science for drama so that we could spend more time stealing furtive glances across classrooms and I wouldn’t have been in that drama group if I didn’t want to be a better lead guitarist in the school band.

Furthermore, I wouldn’t have been in the school band if my parents hadn’t encouraged creativity in the house which they might not have done if they weren’t creatives themselves, which they might not have been if my Indian father weren’t “allowed” to pursue directing which he wouldn’t have if apartheid hadn’t ended which wouldn’t have happened if millions of people in South Africa and across the globe hadn’t fought for decades against the evil regime which wouldn’t have come into power in the first place.

If South Africa weren’t struggling out of the grips of British Colonialism in the early 1900s which it couldn’t have been if the Dutch hadn’t been brutally defeated in the second Anglo-Boer War which they wouldn’t even have been fighting if their fair-skinned foes, butt-hurt about the Napoleonic wars, weren’t looking to export their poor or if they’d all just stayed the fuck out of Africa — but then again, in that alternate reality, I wouldn’t exist in this form today. So here I am.

Has it been a smooth road?
At times it’s been smooth, at times not. External elements obviously factor into this ebb and flow, but I’ve noticed that most often it has to do with my own self-perception, self-reflection, self-doubt, etc. during trying times that dictates how smoothly I coast through circumstance. When I’m being true to myself while taking risks, setting boundaries, making new connections, and maintaining focus and discipline.

I find it quite easy to re-cast a bump in the road as a crash barrier or guardrail, guiding my way. Conversely, when I’m working as a means for filling a hole, contorting for approval, losing myself in insecurity and desperation for love and adoration — that’s when the bump in the road really derails me. But I guess even then, it functions as a wake-up call. So I’m trying to accept being out of control.

Please tell us more about your work.
First and foremost, I’m a writer. I’m very grateful to have had many opportunities rewriting and polishing other writers’ scripts — I jokingly call this my “day job” but really I can’t believe my luck as this has been the most invaluable training. When I’m not in surgery on someone else’s script, I write my own screenplays and pilots.

My strengths lie in writing family and relationship dynamics, likely a result of my training as an actor: character is always boss for me, so that’s what drives my stories forward. Personal politics also come into everything I write, whether I intend for that to be the case or not; it’s a by-product of my own biography. Epic against-all-odds love stories litter my family history, and my own star-crossed lover narrative has been the defining act of my life so far.

This is the background that has shaped me. It has formed the basis of all my writing, most notably a coming-of-age Holocaust forbidden love story, a British all-women comedy crime caper with an elderly lesbian ending, a South African crime-world historical fiction based on real-life characters who changed the country forever, and an interracial teen romance drama set in Trump’s America — each thriving to retell history from the perspectives that have been muted and over-written for centuries. I am most proud of my work when I have told the truth well enough to elicit empathy from the most stubborn audience member.

Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
I love that LA is a land of dreamers. A great variety of people from a great variety of places have all come to this hub to pursue a dream. Many of us have come up against challenges we’d never have imagined and, as a result, many have been forced to recalibrate and find new and unplanned ways to live our best lives.

I see us as a massive family of people who have made sacrifices because we believed in ourselves just enough to push us into a hellfire industry of self-doubt and self-realization and reward and rejection but no matter the outcome, we did it. And that inspires me.

My least favorite thing about LA is when folks think that this great number of other people pursuing “their” dream is “in their way.” I fundamentally disagree with that concept — the more, the merrier.

Contact Info:

• Website: iamellagabriel.com
• Phone: 3233488117
• Email: ellacgabriel@gmail.com
• Instagram: @ellagabriel
• Twitter: @iamellagabriel

Image Credit:
Justin Munitz, RHYTHM, Will Carnahan

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