Rising Stars: Meet Marycarmen Portillo of West Hollywood

Today we’d like to introduce you to Marycarmen Portillo

Marycarmen, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
My passion for performing arts started when I first watched a dance performance in the place where I was born: Mexico City. I was so attracted to the emotional aspect of it. After a couple of years, I started going to dance classes: ballet, and Polynesian, but like most artists, my mom would always remind me that I had to prioritize school, so I did. Until I went to college and started to pay for my own dance classes with my savings. The next semester I added more and more dance classes and then because I wanted to try more things. I took acting classes, then singing and music.
Arts just made me start to understand people better and understand myself, it allowed me to help people. So I found myself taking courses on the weekends, during the day, and at night. I just couldn’t stop. Eventually, I ended up with an art schedule instead of my regular college courses.

I’ve had so many experiences both in Mexico and LA. Good, bad, scamming, filming for 30-something hours, being lead ballerina, writing my own stories, producing, watching myself on TV, choreographing, singing in a concert, being paid for acting, and dancing. But ever since I arrived in LA I’ve discovered more about myself as a person and grown in unthinkable ways!

It’s been hard to be here alone, pursuing ways to start my artistic career from “zero” but somehow I’ve found myself shooting in semi-professional environments as well as professional.

Right now I’m part of an incredible play and performing around festivals in the US. We started at the Hollywood Fringe Festival and soon will be in NY!

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?
It has not been smooth at all. Sometimes what happens to me feels like out of a movie script!

I’ve had to face so many different people. When I started my journey as an actor. My work was liked so much that created some sort of anger from some of my fellow actors and they started to create a lot of gossip, talking behind my back, etcetera. Kind of normal right? The problem was when they started to isolate me so they could sit close and talk trash about me or when they went further and started contacting my family, friends, ex-partners, my job at that time, or schools I was attending to “advice them” to get away from me and they would just invent stories of me cheating, gossiping, trash talking and much more and worse lies. I even had to go to a lawyer to stop the harassment.

Something that has also been tricky was, moving to another country with no help or support, and I’m talking financially as well as emotionally. I’ve had to starve myself to keep finding opportunities to perform. I’ve also had some more personal situations that I had to deal with by myself with no one to talk to or cry with. Fortunately, I have a therapist now, who has helped me so much to just vent and put things into perspective.

Certainly, it’s not been an easy path. But everything has just given me more strength, knowledge about myself, and understanding of the world. And it’s all been worth it because no matter what, I always find my way to keep moving and doing what I love: helping people through art.

I just need to believe possible the impossible.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I’m a dancer and an actor.
I specialize in contemporary dance and drama.

I’m a really physical person.
I’ve been able to merge both of my passions together. I’m really conscious and aware of my body inside out, which helps me to give a more truthful performance acting or dancing.

I’m really proud of all the passion and hard work that I always put on anything that I do, no matter what.

I’m really nerdy when it comes to my craft. I do all the work, investigation, background, preparation, and study of the mind, body and spirit of each character. And that helps me to have more depth and tools I can play with when I’m performing, and it doesn’t bother me at all. That work is something that I will always do even if nobody asks me to. It’s my passion and my obsession to know as much as I can so I can give myself a lot of opportunities to play, plus all the techniques and tools that all actor and dancer must have!

Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
I’ve always been really curious about everything. But I don’t like just knowing, I love experiencing things by myself. Therefore I’m an actor, living as many lives as possible.

Growing up, I was always pretty active. I would have 3 or 4 different activities to do a day. And I’m still, especially because I’m an adult, therefore I need to balance work to survive, be healthy, and take care of my cat, and my passions, which makes me happy.

I also have had a passion for animals since my day 1 on earth, which made me develop a lot of empathy for all living beings. So I like plays and shows that have takeaways, morals, or something that awaken the audience about different important topics.

I’ve always loved to have an impact on people and contribute something to every person I’ve met and I think arts help me do that way more!

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marycarmen_portillo/?hl=es
• Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/1080988172065123/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1080988205398453

Image Credits
Photographies by
Carlos Franco
Alexandro Carbajal
David Flores Rubio