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

Hi Anissa, thanks for joining us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

When I was very young, my parents brought home their first camcorder – it was the 90s, so you could plug it into the back of your TV and it would transmit whatever the camera was pointed at onto the TV with just a slight delay. When I figured out standing in front of the camera could put me on the TV I was hooked. I already loved performing for my family, from my babysitter’s cheer routines, to re-enactments of musical numbers from Barney, but I think the turning point from just “something entertaining” to “I want to do this for the rest of my life” was through watching films like Terminator 2, Aliens, and Starwars with my dad, as well as getting into more independent films like Super (James Gunn) in my young-adulthood. Getting to see just how grand the world-building aspects of Filmmaking could be, along with the depth of the impactful messages you could wrap into an entertaining narrative, was really igniting for me as a storyteller. Ultimately, that’s what I consider myself: a multi-faceted storyteller.

Anissa, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

When I started I didn’t know anyone in the Film/TV industry. It was my plan to move to Los Angeles right out of highschool, but my parents had heard the horror stories of “starving artists” and made me promise to get a degree first… so naturally I went to school for Theatre. When I graduated, I opted to wing-it and make a short film instead of directing a play as my capstone project. I had no lights, and no sound equipment. Just a DP from the broadcasting department, a cast of classmates, and permission to use the computer lab to edit after hours. I learned so much that year, namely that “learning by doing” is often the best way to keep pushing forward, and also that morale is driven by feeding your cast and crew GOOD food (we ate a lot of home-cooked spaghetti and tacos, cheaper than pizza AND more appreciated). I graduated with an A on that project and immediately set my mind on how to “break in” to TV/Film.

I started where a lot of people do: Background work. It’s the simplest way of getting onto a professional set with little to no gatekeeping involved, so I signed up and would apply to be an Extra in anything and everything I could, from cattle calls to big-budget movies to game show audience members. From there, I observed how sets function and made connections with the Production Assistants and the Assistant Directors. Soon I began working as production assistant and kept growing my network from there. When I was invited to a friend’s acting class, that launched the on-camera side of my career. I trained and gained referrals to my first agent. I treated each job earned like the job interview for the next job.
That was over 12 years ago, and in my latest on-camera job I got to work with one of my storytelling heroes, James Gunn.

On the screenwriting side of things, I started writing short stories in my very first journal, drafted half of a fantasy novel to transcribe onto my first desktop computer, and have studied every award nominated screenplay of the last decade to learn how to be a better screenwriter. As of now, I have a slate of about 11 screenplays at various stages. Only about half are ready to polish and pitch, but for the last 2 years, I’ve devoted all of my free-time to one in particular: THE HUNTED.
My writing partner and I (we operate under the moniker “Wretched Soil”) have finished the feature length version of our short screenplay, which we produced into a proof of concept short in Summer 2023. We have since achieved 16 Award Nominations and 4 wins in festivals this year with the short, and are working toward moving the feature into pre-production in the Fall of 2025. Those interested in following our progress can find us on Instagram: @wretchedsoil

I have also begun building a solo brand for off camera arts that I do (directing, painting, drawing, and artistic entomology), called No-Eyed Deer Creative, which can be found at: @_no.eyed.deer

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Perfection. I think I wasted a lot of time trying to be perfect in how I presented, how I created, and how I performed. My absolute best work has come after deciding I’d rather be real and accept all the flaw with the fun. A huge learning experience for me came with the loss of my hair. It started thinning in my late teens-early twenties, and when I finally decided I had enough of trying to hold onto what I couldn’t, I shave it off and never looked back. It came with a freedom and a realization that it’s okay. I decided it’s okay not to look “perfect” on camera. It’s okay to make a “mistake” in art, or in the delivery of a line. Human beings are flawed and fallible, and some of the most interesting things you see on screen, or in a piece of art was rooting in a “mistake.” It’s part of what makes life beautiful and relatable. You can speak to a greater audience if you’re honest and in my opinion, there’s no honesty in “perfection.”

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I could go on about how great it feels to have your message validated by a recipient, and there’s definitely an element of that that I find incredibly rewarding… but if I’m honest, I do this because I simply cannot function any other way. If I don’t create, I go nuts, so I think the most rewarding part of creating is the catharsis of it. Being able to get all of what’s building up inside my chest and head out of there and into the world where I can see it from all sides and process what it is to me. The bonus is that somewhere there’s an audience that it moves, or speaks to, outside of myself. I think there’s something really uniquely special about finding someone else’s artistic expression relatable. It’s a very fine thread that connects people on a level that nothing else really can.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://demoreel.com/anissamatlock
• Instagram: @anissamatlock, @wretchedsoil, @_no.eyed.deer

Image Credits

Kurt Yue, Nigel Marson, Chase Anderson, and Laura J. Elliot