We were lucky to catch up with Sabrina Orro recently and have shared our conversation below.

Sabrina, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

I’ve slowly and steadily worked on learning this craft my entire life. I’ve always had an inherent need to perform. When I was super young, I used to stand in front of the T.V. and imitate whatever show/movie was playing. I also insisted on performing improvised shows at every family gathering. The first time it really clicked for me was when I saw the national tour of “The Lion King.” I remember thinking, “I want to do that!” But, it took me a long time to figure out how to get started.

My first taste of training was dance class when I was 3-years-old. After that, I jumped at every chance to perform through church and school plays. My brother, Joshua, was a big inspiration and influence on me. I completely idolized him, and I wanted to do everything he did. So, when he joined our school choir program, I joined our school choir program. When he started taking drama classes in middle school, I wanted to do acting even more! Then, when his school drama teacher suggested we audition for a community theatre, I NEEDED to do it.

Following months of begging our mom to take us, we auditioned for the community theatre’s production of “Oklahoma!” in Fall 2005. That theatre was my first real training ground. I learned so much from watching older kids and adults perform, and that’s where I really solidified my desire to become a professional actor. A few months after starting at the community theatre, I was “discovered” at a local mall, and asked to audition for a kids’ background actor company. After making it through the audition process, I started doing background work and taking on-camera acting classes. I did that up until middle school and then, for high school, my mom asked me to take a break so I could focus on academics. During high school, I was really involved in my high school drama program and, the summer before my Senior year, I did UCLA’s Summer Acting program.

After high school, I attended Cal Poly SLO to get my BA in Theatre Arts. After spending most of my life doing community and high school theatre, a lot of my formal training was spent trying to learn how to be “less big.” It was challenging for me to unlearn many of the more “showy” performance habits I had developed over the years, but, in the end, I think all the hard work really paid off. What I loved about Cal Poly’s program was that I got to do a little bit of everything; I took classes in performance, design, directing, writing, and more. I left feeling like I had a good comprehensive theatre education but wanted more specific acting training. So, I auditioned for PCPA’s 2-year Professional Actor Training Conservatory.

The training I received from PCPA was super valuable for me, but the experience was also incredibly difficult. It was a very intense environment! For two years, a cohort of 30 other students and I were in classes together Tuesday-Sunday, 9 am-5 pm; we also had nightly and weekend rehearsals, and, when shows started, we had 8 shows a week on top of that! It was a lot, and I often struggled to keep my head above water; but, somehow, I graduated the program as an even stronger actor.

Since I moved back to So-Cal and started auditioning, I’ve trained with a handful of studios in LA including Actor’s Edge, Keep it Reel, and more. I’ve also had the opportunity to train with a good number of industry professionals, and I’ve privately coached with Paul Barnes from Oregon Shakespeare Festival. I think keeping consistent with training is incredibly important, so I take classes for at least a few months every year. At the moment, I’m also trying to take more classes to learn special skills. Right now, I’m taking dance classes again, and I’m looking into potentially starting stage/screen combat and/or archery courses (I’ve gotten super into reading fantasy in the last year, and I’d LOVE to be a part of the T.V./Film adaptations for the books I’ve read).

In my many years of learning this craft, the most valuable lesson I’ve learned is, “What other people think about me is none of my business.” This is a collaborative industry and we, as actors, often depend on others for opportunities. You truly never know who might lead you to your next job; so, especially when I started, I put a lot of pressure on myself to make sure everyone liked me. As a result, every time I encountered an unkind classmate, a disparaging teacher, or a decision-maker who didn’t vibe with my performance instincts, I felt like I needed to prove them wrong.

I learned, the hard way, that it is literally impossible to control another person’s opinion about you. Sometimes, people just don’t vibe with you/your work— and that’s okay! Weirdly, it’s kind of empowering. You can’t control it anyway, so why worry about it, you know? The biggest mistake I made during my training was focusing more on what other people thought about me/my work than I spent focusing on the work itself. I think I could’ve saved myself a lot of time and pain by just trusting my own belief in myself/my abilities rather than worrying whether others agree that I am nice enough, worthy enough, and talented enough to succeed. I also think I probably would’ve gotten much farther in my training much faster. That said, however, I don’t think that’s a life lesson that you learn as a one-and-done. I think I’ll likely always have to remind myself, ‘Hey girl, what other people think about you is none of your business. Just trust yourself.’ In the moments I remember, I feel powerful. I’ve also noticed that having that kind of trust in yourself is magnetic. Apparently, people are drawn to people who believe in themselves.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My pitch is that I’m “your go-to-Go-Getter”. With the charm of The Spunky Best Friend and the passion of The Fiercely Determined Leader, I radiate duality; in other words, I exist where spunky meets fierce. I try to bring strength and vulnerability to every role, and I have a particular skill for emotional commitment. My favorite roles are ones where I get to honor both sides of my performance strengths; so, I love projects where I get to be silly/goofy AND extremely emotionally vulnerable. 

Like I mentioned earlier, I started performing when I was young through dance, school, and church, and I got involved with community theatre because of my older brother, Joshua. Both Joshua and I struggled in school (both socially and academically), and the theatre really helped us find the sense of community we both needed. Performing and engaging in art had a huge positive impact on us, and completely transformed our lives. When I realized how transformative acting could be for both the audience and performer, that’s what solidified my desire to pursue it. 

So far, I’ve mostly worked in the independent film scene. It’s been an amazing and arduous 5 years, and I’m really proud of my progress! I’ve finally gotten to a point where I’m working somewhat consistently and where I’m getting access to even bigger opportunities. I’m crossing my fingers that my “momentum” continues, and I’m looking forward to seeing where things go from here! In the meantime, I’m excited to share that a lot of my projects are either currently in or applying to festivals and that I have a couple of films releasing in the near future! I have a holiday first feature, “Our Christmas House,” that will be available on Amazon Prime Video starting December 20, 2024, and my first feature, “Oblivium,” is premiering in 2025! I also have another project that might be coming out in Summer 2025; but, at the present moment, I can’t share any more details than that.

The biggest force that’s helped me along my journey so far is my amazing support system of family and friends (especially my parents), and all the friends I’ve made in classes and on sets. My favorite part of doing this is constantly meeting and collaborating with other people, and I’m always excited to continue that process. I’m endlessly grateful for the amazing people I have in my life, and I truly couldn’t keep doing this without them.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

To a certain extent, “play it small.” I’ve always had a big personality; I’m very outgoing and enthusiastic, and I’m often loud and animated. As a kid, I felt the need to “perform” in social situations, to make sure other people felt entertained and comfortable. However, I could also be a bit of a ham and, sometimes, I tried to perform in situations where it wasn’t appropriate (like, in the middle of class). As a result, a lot of adults in my life tried to encourage me to “play it small,” in an effort to make me less disruptive. Then, I grew up doing a lot of musical theatre, which nurtured a lot of my bigger and more showy tendencies as a performer. So, when I started my formal acting training, my professors had to help me learn how to “play it small.” Learning this lesson was extremely valuable for me. There is a time/place for everything, and having access to subtlety is a huge asset as a person and as an actor (especially for film acting). 

As an early performer, there were definitely times when I would force acting choices, pull focus from my fellow actors, and do more in moments where it wasn’t necessary. I believe these impulses came from self-doubt about my own enoughness as an actor (and maybe as a person too). So, any time an acting teacher told me to “play it small,” I think they were actually trying to encourage me that I was enough. I naturally take up a lot of space, so I don’t need to do anything “extra” to draw attention to myself in life, on stage, or in front of a camera. However, I didn’t hear it as an encouragement at the time; instead, I felt they were really telling me “You’re too much.” And that made me want to shrink myself as a person.

I really wrestled with feeling like I was “too much” through a lot of my formal acting training and into my early career. It did a number on my self-confidence, and I had to unlearn the parts of “play it small” that made me ashamed of my inherent bigness. Now, I know that my big personality is a lot of what makes me special. As an actor, what makes you competitive is what you, uniquely, bring to the table. My bigness is a part of what I bring; so, stifling that during my training and my early career did me a huge disservice. Of course, I’m not saying I always bring that to every role I play or every situation I walk into as a person. On camera, you never want to be over-the-top, and, in life and in performance, there are times when less is more. But, I’m not afraid of taking up space like I used to be. I love that I’m a larger-than-life person, and I don’t want to hide it.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Oh, absolutely! Choosing to primarily pursue film rather than theatre was actually a big pivot I made post-college. 

I’ve always wanted to work in Film/TV, but I grew up doing theatre. By the time I was applying to college acting programs, all my prior acting experience, besides the on-camera classes I took from ages 10-12, had come from theatre. Though I took some on-camera acting classes and worked on multiple student films in college, my undergrad and conservatory training was also mostly theatre-based. So, when it came time to decide what to do post-grad, I thought the safest bet would be to primarily pursue theatre and put on-camera acting on the back burner. 

During my last year at PCPA, I spent all of my free time filming self-tapes and attending auditions for year-long internships at different regional theaters around the country. My plan was to secure an internship, spend a year working with whatever theatre I booked the gig with, and then do the touring regional theatre actor thing. But then, after a handful of callbacks, I didn’t book any of the internships. So, I decided to pivot to plan B: focus more on Film/TV acting, and putting theatre on the back burner. 

To my surprise, it ended up working out super well. I started taking more on-camera classes, working on short films, and I booked my first feature film only a few months after moving back home! I even booked a regional theatre contract with SLO Rep for after I wrapped filming in March 2020. Then, March 2020 rolled around, and, well… you know what happened. Obviously, my theatre contract was canceled, and theaters across the country shut down…including all the theaters where I had originally applied for those year-long internships. If I had booked any of the internships, as I’d originally hoped, I wouldn’t have been able to do my plan A anyway. I would have ended up back home, except without all the on-camera training, reel footage, and without the experience of being a lead in a feature film. Like I mentioned earlier, that feature film is finally coming out…5 years later! I’m also happy to report that, in 2023, I finally got to work with SLO Rep on their production of, “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike”.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://sabrinaorro.wixsite.com/actress
• Instagram: @sabrinaorro, https://www.instagram.com/sabrinaorro?igsh=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
• Other: Actor’s Access: https://resumes.actorsaccess.com/sabrinaorro

  IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm8189324/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk

Image Credits

1. Primary Image (Headshot in a teal tank top), Huebner Headshots, Photo by Leah Huebner, @huebnerheadshots on Instagram

2. (Photo of Orro smiling with a mug), Still from “Our Christmas House”, Directed by Annabel Grace Regier, Produced by Sarah Wood Umhau, and DP Graham Skinner

3. (Photo of Orro sitting on stairs), Featuring Ryan Nuss (on the left) and Andrew Van Heusden (on the right). BTS from the set of “SAX,” photo by Kaitlin MacLean

4. (Photo of Orro looking past the camera with teary eyes), Still from “Disconnected”; Directed by Sara Gerbereux, Produced by Elodie Ghonda, and DP Yiran Chen

5. (Photo of Orro smiling on a couch), Featuring Cameron Vance, BTS from the set of “The Passenger,” film photo by Callie Robinson (Producer)

6. (Photo of Orro touching a Christmas Ornament), Still from “Our Christmas House”, Directed by Annabel Grace Regier, Produced by Sarah Wood Umhau, and DP Graham Skinner

7. (Photo of Orro smiling while dressed as a princess), Featuring Bree Murphy (left) and Tom Ammon (right), Production photo from SLO Rep’s “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike,” photo by Ryan C. Loyd, RyLo Media Design