We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Daniela Garcia. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Daniela below.
Daniela, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your creative career sooner or later?
If I could go back in time and the grand deus ex machina would have been able to intervene on my life’s path, the thing that I would have liked to experience differently is having access to a wise mentor who’d have guided me through every winding & perilous path, leaving no stone unturned in providing the know-how in regards to A.) life in general, B.) where to even begin on my creative journey, C.) mistakes to avoid in order to be just that much more ahead in my career path & most importantly, D.) letting me know that mistakes WILL be made regardless of knowing all about A, B, C and that it is totally okay that it DIDN’T work out this way at all because, “Whatever is meant for us will never pass us by.”
In sum, it would have been lovely to have someone at a young age who was perfectly in the know about all-things film industry and music but I didn’t and the resources/people willing/able to provide this sort of insight was few & far in between, however, the experience I’ve gained along the way on THIS specific path down which this life has led me, is the one for which I am most grateful because it’s the one that was always MEANT to happen.
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?
Pursuing a what I once thought was just a fun virtual opportunity to be a part of a cool film experiment by Intel & Toshiba back in 2013 by submitting a 40-second self-tape audition initially prompted by a sponsored twitter post, was at the time just that; a fun virtual opportunity to be included in a cool film experiment titled The Beauty Inside.
Somehow, I fit the description casting directors sought at the time to play Alex #12 as one of the several versions of ‘Alex’, the series’s main character with an ever-changing physical appearance upon waking- to the major confusion of his love interest played by Elizabeth Marie Winstead (a.k.a. Ramona Flowers from Scott Pilgrim vs. The World).I had just graduated high school in 2012 and had taken the liberty of dying my hair a bright bubblegum pink that faded into a pretty plum at the tips as a means of creative self-expression and a slight need for control over my life in the midst of figuring out what life after high school would be for me. In the middle of submitting what felt like very scattered half-attempts at college applications -out of sheer lack of personal direction mind you, as well as having had a thorough grasp on my family’s overall financial situation- I saw a window of potential to simply DO something I’d always been fond of as a kid in others who played many lives on the screen, even if it was just that once.
Lo and behold, I received a letter- yes, a physical letter- in the mail letting me know my audition clip had been selected to be included in the actual series itself and that the checks attached to this letter were mine to keep. My mind was BLOWN. I was of course absolutely skeptical and thought maybe I had been scammed into submitting my personal information and that as soon as I would take said checks to the bank that a squad of police cars would show up and arrest me on the spot for attempting to commit some sort of fraud & my perfectly clean record would then be ruined. Bye bye college! Bye bye life in general! Hello prison instant coffee and lots and lots of time to read nothing but Dean Koontz & practice pull-ups for endless days to come. Or so I’d feared…Clearly, that wasn’t the case, as a now 29-year old lil’ lady with a MOSTLY clean record- listen, everyone goes through a minor fender-bender at least once in their life alright?-I have thus continued the journey in the world of acting & creating since then.
The fact that my very first acting role EVER just so happened to be working as a SAG project- also known as the ‘Screen Actors Guild’- meant that the payout was, well, NICE, to put it modestly but also incredibly lucky, serendipitous & truly acted as a spiritual compass for me. Granted, having received the letter itself letting me know I was going to be a part of this cool project was already THE most exciting thing that had happened all year thus far, but for that very same letter to be addressing that not one, not two, but THREE handsome paychecks were my reward after a long day at the office- or actually just a result of having been chosen for a mere two seconds of screen time- felt like the Universe was speaking to me loud and clear in regards to personal pursuits & passions.
Ironically, I used one of these nifty paychecks to purchase a very old & weathered yet lovable Ford Taurus from the neighborhood auto shop and later ended up ruining my short but perfect driving record with previously aforementioned fender bender. lol. Balance. The young adult fiction novel manuscript I had started & miraculously finished writing that summer after high school in 2012- all thanks to the encouragement of my eldest sister- a vocal prodigy who dabbles in guitar & the sole reason why I pursued music too in the first place- was ultimately literally printed on your standard 8.5 x 11in paper and put on a metaphorical back burner/a squeaky second-hand metal filing cabinet my mom had given me with its paint chipped mostly off, settling in for an extended vacation along with a myriad number of random notes of dialogue, names of characters, plot points & Twilight CD soundtracks. The CDs eventually made their way to their permanent home in my new-to-me, also fender-bendered at-some-point, CD-player-having-car. And yes, New Moon had the best soundtrack but Paramore’s ‘Decode’ will forever remain the go-to belting-in-the-car-all-the-
I quickly learned that if I wanted to continue in the world of acting, I would have to meet face-to-face with the reality that not every gig, in fact, hardly ANY gig would ever pay as much as this spectacular first opportunity quite as easily, at least, not for a long time, and that it would take immense work (inner, outer, you name it), a voyage into extreme emotional terrains in order for there to ever even be a next one. Did I even want there to be a next one? Why did I really ever want to pursue acting in the first place? Am I just a self-referential & egotistical asshole or this is just another manic episode?
I genuinely started to question my own truth and self-worth throughout the years of casually seeking work due to the undeniable & blatant truth that there is no shortage of competition, as equally as there is a lack of major representation for women like me within the film industry, whom are told and made to feel that they are either too Mexican, or not Mexican enough for roles that don’t even resonate with our core in the first place.
If there is another thing I would change about my experience as a creative, actor, musician, writer, etc./fill-in-the-blanks at this point— in retrospect- it would be to have further believed in my capability to take that fat stack of paper with the right-size margins & properly-researched formatting & send it to more than just one literary agency which wasn’t even accepting submissions at the time anyway, resulting in a default but very polite rejection letter. If memory serves, said rejection letter may have actually been physically tangible and despite my first and only attempt at querying a literary agent/agency having failed pretty weakly-yet emotionally caustic to the core- I decided to take this rejection as redirection in pursuing my higher education in order to improve any ounce of writing capability I feebly believed I possessed at that point in time.
As it turns out, that baby bubblegum pink hair soon-turned-hot-pink prompted yet another sort of type-casting of a featured background role for an alleged Pretty Little Liars-type spin-off called The Lying Game, for which I never did find the episode so let me know if you guys do! Eight transformative years later, ya’ girl lands an audition for the starring role of ‘Imogen’ in the official Pretty Little Liars spin-off which made its 2022 debut on HBO Max. Just as the initial experience of getting to be a part of an exciting project in 2013 was a gift in and of itself, this major audition felt like I’d experienced a full-circle moment in 2021 in my experience as an actor. And although I didn’t land the role in the end (whomp whomp), I will forever consider being called into the virtual self-tape room a major win nonetheless because it confirmed that I must have been and am currently doing somethin’ right to be called on by the casting director gods!
Thus, my higher education ensued in 2014 as a Texas State Bobcat. After almost a year of figuring out what my initial spur-of-the-moment choice of degree even meant & climbing all those gosh-darn stairs- Mass Communications if you’re wondering, because I totally was & yes, my calves are phenomenal, thank you (I suffered so you can laugh)- I, with the expensive and tuition-included help of my college fairy godmother (advisor), figured out that my major would ultimately be English, with a focus in writing for film and a sweet little minor in anthropology because, why-freaking-not.
With a multitude of casting call submissions in the middle of pursuing my Bachelor’s degree, struggling to support myself financially through college, juggling two and even three jobs at the time separate from acting, being a full-time student while being financially illiterate in an entirely culturally-shocking-to-a-
Oh & music. My God, Music; how it’s played an elemental role in an ocean of wild pursuits and rendezvous! Again, my enigma of a sister, Lizzette (Sanchez) takes credit for being the farmer to the seeds which have bared fruit throughout the years after effortlessly playing the skillfully-required finger style picking song ‘Dust in the Wind’ by Kansas on our dad’s barely-touched Classical one soft Sunday afternoon in my childhood. It may have been Saturday for all I remember quite honestly…
What I DO remember is how bad-freaking-a** my sister looked and sounded playing that specific song on guitar and it was everything I ever needed to beg my mom for a guitar so that I too could play that exact same chord progression in the exact same manner and be equally as bad-a**. Ultimately, I made it my adolescent-life mission to learn ‘Dust in the Wind’ as the very first song I play on guitar and alas! It was! Not nearly as great as I’d initially hoped but I’ve had roughly sixteen+ years of time to fiddle with the G-string. and develop a sense of humor as a coping mechanism thereafter of course.
It was during this time as a bobcat that I went under the musical wing of the ever-so-talented Grant Mazak- a legendary central Texas musician & once-owner of Mazak Music Store in San Marcos, TX. While attending Texas State University, I had the honor of being further taught guitar and guitar theory for a few semesters and was inspired to perform one of my own songs on guitar live for the very first time at Cheatham Street Warehouse. If ya don’t already know it, Cheatham Street Warehouse is a staple music venue wherein the southern gentlemen, George Strait & Randy Rogers got their start with the thorough enthusiasm, expertise and encouragement of Cheatham Street’s owner & founder, Kent Finlay. Typically, Sundays are reserved for the Lord but in my case, Wednesdays were a sort of musical temple & every singer-songwriter willing to share their original songs had the opportunity to perform them for others with the undivided attention of the audience-otherwise, Kent Finally would let ya have it!
This prompted a series of several live show performances around the San Marvelous community and just outside of it for the time I had the privilege of calling myself a San Martian while simultaneously indulging in the Bobcat lifestyle (eat ‘em up, eat ‘em up!). It was during this time too that I used a collection of experiences, interactions, exchanges of words with those around me and observations in my day-to-day as a twenty-something Latina who’d moved her way into the heart and hill county of Texas with a chaos of dreams, desires, and disappointments as inspiration for writing several of my own songs, accompanied by guitar in the midst of my college education.
From taking part in the singer-songwriter’s circle on Wednesdays at Cheatham Street Warehouse to volunteering at KTSW 89.9, Texas State’s University radio station as a web content contributor, attending/performing at different music venues and meeting a sea of talented musicians along the way, the desire to be musically involved remained rooted in my soul. It was the seed planted to later bare fruit as my first single/music video, titled ‘Dia del Muerto’ under my stage name, transmut8ion on music-streaming platforms in 2021 with the help and brilliance of my music producer, Abe Mendoza- another fellow Mexican creative, as well as a special bunch of great people willing to invest their time/efforts into a visual representation of what my over-imaginative brain could come up with. Huge thanks to Abraham Xicotencatl, Sergio Perez and Robert Bass for being the amazing skeleton crew for ‘Dia del Muerto’ ’s music video essential to making it all tie in together the way it did, as well as Victor Flores and Aldo Márquez and family for being immense supporters and participators in this special project of mine which will forever take special residency in my heart. Currently, a new and special music project is in the works with the likes of Abe Mendoza, collaborating with me on another original song I’d written in 2016 and potentially mixing it up with a subtle combination of a couple of genres. Let’s just say, Amerikinda going to be releasing it soon so stay tuned folks…
Post college graduation in 2017 from Texas State University held no true summer break as I had decided to fully delve into committing to an eleven-month service with City Year, Americorps, serving the East side of San Antonio, TX at the M. L. King Academy as a volunteer 5th/6th grade ELA peer-coach mentor. I had no idea that my students would have the lasting impact on my life that they did that I believe I could ever have had on them. It was truly a joyous, fulfilling, as well as challenging period of my life I’d serendipitously dived into as I approached the end of earning my BA in English.
As a result, I had the immense honor of graduating from my service in 2018 among some amazing corps members whom had all dedicated nearly a year of their lives to the under-served academic youth community of San Antonio. Through a series of unfortunate life events which ensued near my City Year volunteer service in my personal life, I was undoubtedly guided back home where my roots had been planted on the hot and prickly edge of Texas towards a tiny town called Eagle Pass.
A more intentional approach to my acting career happened right smack dab in the middle of a pandemic, a time within which I’d been working at a correctional facility on the southwest border of Texas (basically Mexico). My job as a Law & Leisure Library supervisor for the Idaho inmate population was an undeniably incomparable experience to any other sort of means of employment leading up to that point. But it was this, the culmination of previous experiences-both good and bad- the sudden onset of a world pandemic & being pushed to solitary confinement of my own that I felt drawn to simply CREATE. As a result of having plenty of time on my hands and a world of information at my disposal, I began my search for representation as an actor. After a few weeks, or perhaps months-it all seems to blur together doesn’t it?- I’d narrowed down my search for a talent agent I felt was the right match for me and I for them. It was then that I auditioned for my current agency – shoutout to my lovely & devoted agent for taking that initial chance on me as onboarding talent- and thus my official acting career began.
It was not so much about seeking background roles for fun or daydreaming about what life in front, behind, and around a camera would be like anymore but instead hunkering down on all of the nitty gritty of the film industry, how it works, the emotional ups and downs in the life of an actor, and developing the thickest hide I’d ever imagined I was capable of developing nor felt I ever needed to develop. But my goodness, am I grateful that my creative well had been so dry I decided to act upon that desire to be quenched, to be satiated beyond the day-to-day security of my life that was an incredibly blessed 9-5 with full benefits and a truly wonderful boss. Call me crazy but it wasn’t enough to nurture my spirit. I am, however, endlessly grateful that they too took a chance on me as the sole mediator/ensurer of legal & literary leisure access to over 600 inmates. Makeshift prison librarian by the day, and (creatively)-starved artist with no idea what she was in for by Covid night. Ultimately, as a result of a company-wide layoff and the out-of-state transport of our inmate population after the facility shut down, I was off to Houston, TX for my third official table read for a feature-length film the day after my last day of service as Law Library Officer Garcia. I’d set my correctional officer badge down and traded it in for a place card at a table read with the supporting character’s name of just one pinnacle in the Stonehenge of pinnacles of a cast alongside some great folks with whom I’ve kept touch throughout the past couple of years despite the project not moving forward.
One of the hardest pills to swallow in the world of acting is knowing that despite seeking an agent, experiencing a frenetic episode of anxiety before the audition followed by an exhilarating rush of excitement and Hallelujahs and Hail-Marys after being signed, going through the motions of reading through tons and tons of casting calls, being called into the room, being called BACK into the room- oh my God, they like me…they really really like me!– and then booking the darn part, there is always the potential to never see a project come to fruition. There are SO many factors that can come into play in the game of chess that is creating a movie. What people fail to see is that the end result of what they see on the screen with a heaping bowl of buttery popcorn goodness on their lap, and maybe some Twizzlers in one cup holder (the red ones, duh), a salty pickle in the other, and a swirled blue & red guaranteed-to-give-you-a-brain freeze-Icee in hand, is that there is an entire village, NO, an entire UNIVERSE of individuals whom at some point decided to all band together to bring us the masterpiece our literal eyeballs get to witness as the 120-minute minimum run-time feature. And it doesn’t always get made. I’ve played a thousand imaginary violins in honor and memory of the unfortunate projects nixed a little too early-or in some cases, just in time-because they can’t all be winners. Sharknado is the exception, of course.
Life is hard and sometimes fun and then you die. But at least we get to make a movie about it!
Kidding. Well….
But really, as an actor I’ve learned to go into any sort of endeavor with an open mind, a neutral approach, a sheer willingness to be wrong and to learn, as well as to speak up for myself, and most importantly, to fully own my whole entire self. The more roles I’ve been blessed to play and the people by whom I’ve been surrounded has taught me a little bit more about myself every single time. As a result, I’ve learned that I knew absolutely nothing about myself up until that moment in time and whoever it was I had been perceived by the world to be, including me was just a big fat lie. Surely there’s a level of authenticity to my individual character throughout the years which has remained consistent, such as my undying love/obsession for green manzanilla olives.
What I am most excited to share with the world however, is the real ME that is a result of an ever-developing person molded by experience, plenty of dumb choices, some smart investments here and there, genuine soul-level connection felt with others, and the acquirement of quirks from a collective of personalities in characters- both on the page and in the flesh- all sort of morphing into one being that is the person typing away at the keyboard at the local neighborhood coffee shop at 7:42pm on a wintry Wednesday night.
I am heres, you are heres, you are me and we are all together! As a little band called The Beatles once sang…
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
I think that we’re all just people trying to figure out life as we go, quite simply put. I’m one of those teeny tiny people on the spectrum of the expansive universe making the microscopic, subatomic, seemingly egotistical and self-fulling but utterly necessary attempt at figuring out who I am as a whole- if there even is one- what life is really all about, and what lies thereafter. Is it nothingness? Is it an Emmy or an Oscar? Is it an entire jar of pitted green manzanilla pimento-stuffed olives? Lord, I hope so.
But we don’t know and that is freaking terrifying. It’s also quite beautiful when you think about it. To know that we don’t know a single darn thing, is the safest bet in reality-whichever reality you’re living in by the way. It’s probably the only safe bet I might daringly encourage people to take because in the world of creative endeavors, playing it safe hasn’t really resulted in many Sharkados.
Subconsciously, I think I’ve made it my life’s mission to use my seemingly less logically-oriented side of the brain and hone in on that creative left side they taught me about in my 3rd grade Gifted & Talented class (dorky flex but okay), in order to act as a helping hand to the Universe in pulling energy from experience, from memory, from joy and from heartbreak, from potentially manic & depressive episodes, from shared wisdom, and more crucially, from hope in order to weave a chrysalis of intangible threads of consciousness into tangible existence of Story. Be it through acting, be it through music, or writing, to tell the story, of these characters, the story of people I’ve crossed on the street looking a little too solemn, and others absolutely overjoyed and the story of the world as I’ve come to know it, the story of time, and me, to tell the story is key in my own survival to the madness or sheer simplicity of existence.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
To this day, the most rewarding and fulfilling aspect of being an artist, actor, musician, creative, what-have-you, are the connections which have been made during moments of collective creation. The moments may be fleeting and brief, or lingering and long overnight shoots and jam sessions but it’s the moments when nothing else matters, all is forgotten and the present is all there is. To be, to exist and to know that your sole purpose in the present moment is to be a part of that story in telling a story, takes up space in an empty cobwebbed-corner of my heart of which’s existence I’d been utterly unaware of prior to that connection, that smile, that exchange of made-up dialogue, that direction of framing and delivery, that adjustment to the knob of reverb and overall volume for the audience below the stage.
The reception of that story, that dialogue and delivery, the performance & being met with an excited & friendly face after it all, telling me that THIS, this THING resonated with them for one reason or another and they just want to thank me for it because they felt heard, they felt seen, they felt understood or simply started to question their current reality-
That.
I exist for that.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.canva.
com/design/DAEeZaC1Clg/ 12yyDsi3ibFGAIRlvHrxwA/view? website#4 - Instagram: https://www.
instagram.com/mediasres_/ - Youtube: https://www.youtube.
com/channel/ UCp7b6vh6A8ipDyvBYnKqcgA - Other: https://www.
thenealhamilagency.com/talent/ daniela-garcia-106555?main_ portfolio=talent-women& portfolio=talent-women - Other: https://open.spotify.com/
artist/3K2dHnEn5uSDPES79rIL53? si=dNYloxtRQ-Ok7h0C0cImfw
Image Credits
Roger Duran, Jet Norway, Ziming Xie, Sergio Perez, Mikel Fair