We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Carolina Liz. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Carolina below.
Carolina, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?
The idea of creating Art has always been within me, but the moment I felt it clicked for me that I had to pursue it as a career was when I went to watch the play ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’. Seeing the Brazilian actress Maria Luisa Mendonça playing Blanche had such a huge impact on me, and I remembered leaving the theater thinking “That’s it. Whatever feeling I have right now after watching her is what I want to make people feel when I’m performing.” For me, there’s no better profession than acting because we get to live all the moments over and over again.
Carolina, 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?
My name is Carolina Liz. I’m an actress and Filmmaker. I’m based in Los Angeles but I was born and raised in São Paulo, Brazil. I chose to be a professional actor when I was 15 and thankfully I had the privilege to travel and study all over the world: Moscow, São Paulo, New York City, Los Angeles, Oxford. I also have a BFA in Filmmaking at Anhembi Morumbi University in Brazil. My upcoming movie called “When We Were Us” is the first project I challenged myself to write, act, direct and produce. I got to admit it was not easy, specially being a low-budget movie and the crew was basically me and my other 4 friends. I even remember at some point I thought about replacing myself and choosing a different actress to play the leading role of Leoni because I was getting overwhelmed. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find any half asian actresses and one of the main reasons I wrote this story was to literally support diversity because growing up as Japanese Brazilian, I did not see myself represented anywhere. So even though I worried a lot about not being able to handle the amount of work, I pushed myself to give my best and looking back I’m glad I did it. I showed one of the scenes to my little cousins and they said “Now, I’m gonna be able to watch a movie that I see myself in it.” That comment made me so happy and made me realize that fighting for diversity will always be a part of me. I look forward to see where this path goes.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
Definitely how I chose to deal with my feelings in the past. Every human being goes through a range of emotions every day, sometimes good, and sometimes traumatic. I’ve realized my first instinct was to simply not acknowledge them and shut them down. I saw how dangerous and how it jeopardizes your body. Closing myself to the real world would not make me a good actor. When I understood how beautiful it is to simply try and live the moment, the more real I felt on stage or on camera.
What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?
Supporting artists goes more than just donating money to a project. Supporting, in my personal opinion, means visiting museums, watching movies, going to the theaters, taking your others friends that are not related to the artistic world and making them fall in love with Art as well, discussing how you feel after you’ve seen a performance. All of these make the creative ecosystem spread and I think that’s why art never dies.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @caaliz
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@carolinaliz3009
Image Credits
Felipe Felizardo, Leticia Almeida, Allan Bravos.