My first speaking role came a couple of years later in kindergarten when I recited the Night Before Christmas—with gestures!—for the parents of my schoolmates (most of whom loathed me, probably because I did things like recite The Night Before Christmas to entertain the adults). I don’t remember the performance, but I do remember the applause. I loved it! And it didn’t take me long to figure out that the best way to get more of it was to be on stage, pretending to be someone else.
Every time I landed a new job—even the bad ones—I knew how lucky I was. Even now when I don’t act anymore and I am happily writing for a living, I know those years I spent acting were a gift.
Louise,
the Actress
I was a desperately shy kid who wanted attention. If you find that confusing, try being me. My first acting gig (which was more acting adjacent) was posing for an ad for my dad’s business; I was three at the time. Dad ran and owned Elm City Photo, developing photos from negatives back in the days when we had negatives as well as pictures printed on pieces of paper. (And if you don’t remember that, it doesn’t matter.) The point is—I started posing in front of cameras at a very early age.
It wasn’t until I was fifteen that I realized what acting and theater could mean. I had an acting coach by then—the best I ever had—and she told me to work on Emily’s final speech in Our Town; the one at the end of the play when she’s died and comes back to say goodbye to everything and everyone she ever loved. I’d lost my father earlier that same year, but I’d never let myself really cry about it. I don’t know if my coach knew this, but she could tell I was a very uptight kid. Naturally, I connected with Emily’s speech, and to my total amazement, I aced it! My coach then told me something I have never forgotten:
“Now you see what can happen when you act. Pain comes to all of us, that’s life, and there’s nothing we can do about it. But if you learn to do your job, you will be able to use your painful times, and everything else you experience. Nothing that happens to you will be wasted. You will be one of the lucky ones.”
I never forgot that.
Headshots
Commercial Shots
