We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Anamaría Willars. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Anamaría below.

Anamaría, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

Since I can remember, I have been attracted to the softness of life. I guess I can blame that on my mother, as she always showed herself to my siblings and me as a full human. She has an incredible heart, and therefore, I was always in contact with and thinking about humanity and the beauty of life and objects.

The first time I knew that my curiosity for the arts was intense was when I was in kindergarten. My grandmother, my father’s mother, loved to write poetry, and she would ask us who wanted to learn her writings. I can remember it vividly: her sitting in the corner of her bed and me standing in her room, and she would tell me how to hold the notebook with one hand and move my hand according to the poetry with the other. We would just practice for fun, and one day at school, in a Mother’s Day festival, I said I knew a poem that was on theme, and she and I would practice it. On the day of, I performed it. My memory of that feels like an oniric dream, as all performances tend to do, a patchwork of what I remember and what I have been told by others that happened. – I still remember the poetry.

When I learned that people did arts for a living, and dedicated their lives to a quest for research into humanity and the world I started taking it more seriously, and my grandfather saw that I had this inquiry of the arts, and we would watch all the classical movies, and he would buy me CDs of classical music and jazz, just to deepen my inner world. And afterwards, we would sit and chat for hours; he would write small essays on what it meant politically, what it was trying to say, or what a piece of work meant sociologically, depending on the time it was released.

Also, I cannot mention my interest in the arts without acknowledging the time I was brought up as a child in northern Mexico, during the presidency of Calderón. Times were bad, scary, and crude. And the arts meant for me either an escape, a quest to understand, or a rejection of the harshness. That made the arts so appealing: a space to dissect a society, a group of people, to ask, how did we end up here as individuals and a collective? and dare to imagine a better future.

I guess the short answer is, I always knew, like in the bottom of my diaphragm, and life made sure that I had that fed through my environment and people: the softness, the curiosity, the critical thinking, the crudeness/rawness, and the space to explore. I am not an island, but rather a result of all the great people who loved me and shared their light with me.

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.

I am a multi-hyphenate artist. An actress, writer, singer-songwriter, and director. I hold an MFA in Contemporary Theater and Performance and a minor in Media Studies from The New School and a BFA in Theater Arts from Mexico.
I have mainly done theater, but currently working more on creating film and TV.

The grotesque, the funny, the absurd, and the surreal of the world are things that interest me, having humanity and comedy always at its center, as it allows vulnerability to shine in, and I believe it is the best representation of life, of it being important but not too serious, and allows for honesty, the raw, gross, vulnerable and other styles, themes, and tones to be explored.

A piece I am currently working on is my clown solo performance about love, relationships, sex, and what we inherit, called “Give me your love, your heart & Bunny.” it has been a part of national and international festivals, and currently working on making it a pilot for a sitcom.

I believe we are all good by nature; we are just a little bit lost, and through art, I found love, this inexplicable thing that will outlive us and shape us, and I want to dedicate my life to that. I want to be where the mending is, and give back what was given to me.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

Yes, definitely. There has been a lot of work that has changed my philosophy on how I create. I guess early on, seeing Dead Poets Society was a big thing in my life. Then seeing theater in Mexico that values images, the body, and the ritual. And in New York, seeing the play English, transformed me in ways I will never be able to verbalize, I understood why story is important in the theater for the United States as opposed to how it is in other parts in America or the world.
Doing Grotowski’s work also changed so much for me, to prioritize the body and instinct as a driving creative force.

Books like: In Defense of Love by Ron Rosenbaum, The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm, and Wonderworks by Angus Fletcher gave me new thoughts, a bigger understanding, and words for my interest.
Novels like The Bell Jar, Rachel Cusk’s books, and Elena Garro have broadened my world and sensations through elevated and poetic language.

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

Always, always, always to follow my curiosity and what brings me joy. I want to continue working on this, being my north star, that which brings me to go deep and dare to move outwards, onwards, in space.

I have dreams of where I want and hope to end up and what I hope I can get the resources and connections to create, but at the end of the day, the goal is always to create, no matter the form or the way. But always out of an inner spark, of inner vulnerability and strength.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://willarsanamaria.wixsite.com/anamaria-willars/blank
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anamaria.willars/?hl=es-la
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anamaria-willars/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@anamariawillars
• Other: https://www.backstage.com/u/anamariawillars/
  https://www.imdb.com/es/name/nm17389120/

Image Credits

Ben Scofield
Steven Pisano
Christopher Gagliardi
Maria Baranova
Moira Zhang