We were lucky to catch up with Erin Anne MacDonald recently and have shared our conversation below.

Erin, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’ve love to hear an interesting investment story – what was one of the best or worst investments you’ve made? (Note, these responses are only intended as entertainment and shouldn’t be construed as investment advice)

The worst investment I’ve ever made is in the belief that things will work themselves out over time.

When I moved to New York after school, I had a constant feeling of something like, “Oh, you’re too young to do that. You don’t deserve to be there yet.” That is one of stupidest notions that one could possibly have. As a 22 year old woman, I somehow did not understand that youth is an advantage in this business. I’ve always been a hard worker, and I believe in learning lessons, not regrets, but if I do have a regret – that’s the one.

Everyone is met with different challenges and distractions in their lives, but when I met mine in my early twenties, I chose to slow down instead of amp up.

Humility is a wildly important thing, but when misplaced, it doesn’t function as it should, and I waited a really long time to decide I was “ready” or “deserving” of my shot. Those feelings always creep in, and in different ways to different people – but I think that one should realize that they will never feel ready – sometimes you just have to be brave enough to jump in and make it work.

What I’m happy about all of these lessons I’ve learned is that I put them into my work – they’re not regrets. They’re tools.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, went to school for musical theatre at the University of Miami, and moved to New York dead set on Broadway. After I graduated, I was living on South Beach working as a bottle server to “save money”, which I quickly realized was A. not serving that purpose B. a very toxic environment (No offense, Miami) and C. not a place I was supposed to be for a second longer.

I went on craigslist, found an apartment, flew my pet rabbit up to Wisconsin (that’s another story), drove my Acura Integra up north, and then drove to the city with my mom and my sister.

I remember when we got to Washington Heights – I had a panic attack and I told my mom I wanted to go back. You’d asked about good parents? I’m lucky to have them. She said to me, “No, Erin. You’re staying. You’re home.”

I got a restaurant job the next day. I did the waiting in line at 5 AM for Equity calls thing after getting home from work at 3AM. I booked off-broadway shows. I did the things. A memory that is burned into my brain: I looked at my at-the-time boyfriend and asked him to not to come to the show I was in, and he said, “Let’s get this straight. You’re not getting paid, you’re working every second you’re not in rehearsal, but you don’t want me to come to the show.”

That was the moment I realized I needed to figure out how to do things the way that I needed to do them.

So, I started modeling. I’ve always had body image issues – and this is usually puzzling to people when I talk about it, but getting into modeling helped me more than any therapist ever did. Because my measurements and my weight no longer had anything to do with me – it only had to do with my work.

That gave me the confidence to start auditioning for films. After playing some great roles in a number of films and a parade of vengeful-murder-scorned-women in what could be a boxed set of docudramas, I decided to start writing.

Fast forward a number of years later … I’ve written and produced award-winning projects and am currently in pre-production for a short, a pilot, and two features films. I can happily say … yeah, I’m proud of that!

You can check out our short film “Care” at www.care-film.com – we’ve just finished up a great festival circuit and are working on finding the right place to make it available for streaming.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

Yeah – my crazy schedule. A lot of people in my life get it, but some of them don’t, which is totally understandable.

I write at night. I hate that I write at night, but my brain turns on at night; I am a writing vampire.

The pandemic didn’t help, because as my pay-your-bills job is running events, I essentially became a “house pet.” Both of my roommates were working from home, and I was left to my own devices to sleep, write, work out, cook, whenever I wanted to. The big lesson from that, at least for me, is the importance of structure when you’re in a creative field or, for that matter, any field. But I would be so bold as to say that structure and routine comes much more naturally to many more people than it does to me.

That said – discipline is a choice, and while I don’t think I will ever leap out of bed at 7 AM with my personality at 100, one of the most important things in this business is flexibility and willingness to make things work, so if I went around being like, “Well, I don’t do mornings,” good night and good luck to me.

One of the most important things to me about my work is exploring empathy and how it can function through different relationships, and I think that is completely applicable in my response to this question – we need to listen to each other. I have close friendships with all sorts of different kinds of people, and it works because we listen to each other. We don’t have to understand what it feels like to be in each others’ shoes. We just have to listen.

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

I was raised to be very polite. That’s a nice thing. But I had to learn (and still work on learning every day) that being polite and being quiet are not mutually exclusive.

No matter who you are, it can be hard to make your voice heard in any room. There have been many times that I “knew” I was right about something, but because I let other people talk over me – because I truly wanted to hear what they had to say – time ran out or my voice got lost in the mix of things.

There are a lot of “yes” people out there. I’ve worked with people who … if I were to ask for a giraffe to be on set in an hour, I feel that they would’ve been like, “yeah, yeah, yeah,” and then it would be an hour later, and – no giraffe. A lot of people tell you what you want to hear, and, unfortunately, most things must be challenged and vetted.

I am fortunate to have a number of people who I would trust with my mother’s life – my production partner, Evan Enslow, my actual partner, who deserves medals of all sorts for putting up with me, and my family, who would, also, most likely protect my mother. Also, I work with a fantastic acting coach, David Vadim, a great network of creatives in the city, and an unbelievable production team with which I’m developing a new feature film, “Vicky’s Big Break.”

So – you can find your people – just challenge, vet and have faith that they’re out there.

I strayed from the original question – the lesson – you can be loud and it does not make you impolite. You can be loud and wrong, and you can always figure out what to do to make things better as long as you own up to your mistakes.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.erinannemacdonald.com
• Instagram: @erinannemac
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/erinannemacdonald
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erin-anne-macdonald-87852764/
• Twitter: @erinannemac
• Other: www.care-film.com

Image Credits
Joan Michel David Burlacu Mastermynd Media