We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sophia Flot-Warner. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sophia below.

Hi Sophia, thanks for joining us today. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your creative career sooner or later?

I absolutely wish I had started my creative career much sooner, like in high school sooner! I sometimes feel I’ve lost or wasted so many years working in other fields, but God reminds me that I have gained valuable experiences and met wonderful people throughout the many iterations of my life.

I’ve worked in higher education, event planning, medical offices, restaurants, HR, production, corporate training and more. I’ve had the pleasure of traveling to many countries, meeting and working with absolutely amazing people who remain dear friends to this day. I have so many moments and memories to inform and enrich my work as a screenwriter and as an actor. The depth of life that I have to pull from is awesome.

Still I wish I had begun this creative work much sooner so I’d be much further along in my career, deeper in my knowledge and practice of screenwriting and acting. On the other hand, if I had started on this creative path before I had a relationship with Christ, things would have gone very wrong for me. I would not have the foundation, guidance, wisdom and strength needed to avoid the pitfalls of “the Hollywood life”. So in God’s timing, I started right when I needed to.

Sophia, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Writing and reading have always been a part of who I am. Fond memories swirl around my head and heart of time in the library, finding books in an abandoned garage, favorite poems and stories read and written. It was a natural, though long hidden, progression into acting and then to screenwriting.

My first serious foray into acting was well into adulthood. In my 20s, I did the play “The Colored Museum” in a small theater in New Orleans. I loved it so much! Life got in the way, as with so many of us and our true passions, and I didn’t do any acting again until years later. Living in Houston, Tx, I began to do community theater and productions with my church. I was delighted to be able to dedicate my creative passion to God and His message! Soon, the Holy Spirit spoke and directed me to move to Los Angeles to pursue acting. Little did I know that God has so much more planned for me in Hollywood!

Arriving in July 2012, I booked my first ever LA audition! I appeared on Justice for All with Judge Cristina Perez as a distraught puppy owner whose dog had been shaved clean by an errant groomer. I was making great progress and booking TV, films and commercials, including 2 national spots! A tragic car accident put a sudden stop to all of that. My pelvis was broken in half and my hip was dislocated. It took several years for me to recover enough to jump back into the fray! With God, natural remedies, prayer, tenacity, hope, and determination, I’m in the mix again!

During all this time and adventure, God asked me to write scripts. I resisted at first, only wanting to act. but if any of you have ever tried to decline a request from God, well, you know. LOL

Fast forward and you find me with 10 Christian faith-based scripts in different stages of writing development!
– Award winning feature love story (4 festival wins and on the Coverfly Red List)
– Award winning anti-crime drama TV pilot (3 festival wins)
– Family drama TV pilot
– Animated conservation short
– Race & Social Justice short
– Mental health short
– Dating comedy short
– 2 sci-fi features
– Family comedy feature

All my work delivers real, relatable faith-based stories that show audiences what it really looks like to walk by faith. That’s my purpose! To glorify God and build His Kingdom with the talents He has given me! My goal is to tell faith-based stories in fresh, juicy new ways! What sets my stories apart is the straightforward, non-preachy way they point to Jesus, His love and His way through tales of everyday life with God helping you sort out all the bits. There’s no pie-in-the-sky notion of being saved and then everything is alright. Nope! I tell the truth of living a life of faith with all of the challenges, victories, depression, joy, liveliness, fights, beauty, darkness and light.

When audiences watch the stories the Holy Spirit gives me I want them to walk away thinking. May they remember something that looks just like what they are going through or went through and discover a new way for God to help them with it. May they recognize the characters in themselves and be encouraged, challenged, inspired and moved to action toward Christ. May they be drawn closer to God and gain a new understanding of who He truly is.

My goal is to keep writing what the Holy Spirit pours into me, sell them all, get them produced and have an acting role in each. Both my career dreams fulfilled in one! The most important piece of those dreams, though, is to get God’s Word to the world!

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

My primary mission in my creative work is to glorify God. Wrapped in that is the call to bring joy, wisdom, laughter, guidance, love and hope to my audiences. The goal is to lift up and bring light to a world filled with negativity and darkness. Entertainment with a purpose can do just that. I’m not looking to preach at anyone, just share truth and love in true-to-life stories that reflect what people are actually living. If one of my movies or shows gives one person clarity on how to allow God to help them through their circumstance, I have been successful. If someone’s hope and faith is renewed, success. If someone’s mindset is transformed to positivity, success. That’s the kind of success that drives me!

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

As I mentioned briefly, in 2016 I was in an awful car accident. A distracted driver swerved into my lane on a 2 lane highway, causing a head-on collision that forced me to confront unimaginable pain and physical limitations from a pelvis broken in half and a dislocated hip. Undeterred, my spirit remained unbroken. After surgery, I was in the hospital for 2 weeks and then in a rehab hospital for 2 more. I happened to be on vacation in Hawaii when this happened, so I couldn’t come home until I could at least get around on crutches. Preparing to maneuver through an airport and stairs at home required lots of physical therapy. I was blessed with wonderful therapists and a lovely chaplain who visited me daily. She said I encouraged her. :-)
Once I got home, I had to deal with trying to do all of the daily things I normally do in the midst of pain, depression, frustration and sometimes despair. I wasn’t always sure I would be able to walk unaided and painlessly again. Through faith in God, hope from Christ and God’s guidance to holistic healing practices, I am finding relief and regaining my independence after several years, emerging stronger and more resolute than ever.
I never stopped working on my acting and voice over career. I still took workshops and casting seminars, auditioned for voice over work and whatever I could to keep myself in the mix. Once I felt strong enough, I began auditioning for acting roles again.
Almost completely healed, I no longer walk with a cane and only feel remnants if I’ve been walking for too long without a rest.
Resilience!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://sophiaflotwarner.wixsite.com/srfwentertainment
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/srfwentertainment/
• Other: IMDb: https://pro.imdb.com/name/nm5224051?s=f6c67b79-7ee3-869e-8024-08f36215981e&site_preference=normal

Image Credits
Sean Kara Photography – headshots