We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Eloise Lola Gordon. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Eloise Lola below.
Eloise Lola, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.
Talk to Me Like the Rain is a short film I adapted from a Tennessee Williams one-act play of the same name. I acted in it, directed it, and oversaw all aspects of creative direction. It’s a project I had been developing in my mind for about seven years, and I finally brought it to life.
I first acted in the staged version at the very end of my senior year of high school, and it quickly became one of my favorite plays. I felt deeply connected to the character and the story, and it sparked a kind of creative thinking I hadn’t yet experienced as a young artist. Those ideas eventually began to clash with the director’s vision. That was the first time I realized I could have a different creative opinion from someone I genuinely respected. I was too young then to know how to advocate for my character, so my “good actor brain” simply performed the role as the director instructed, trusting that she must know better than I did.
Years later, the piece still lingered with me, but as I saw it.
When the strike happened, my co-director, Rose Trimboli, and I were looking for a project to keep us motivated. This was the first one that came to mind. Normally, when Rose and I collaborate, I help bring her visions to life—but this time, the story was mine to tell. We spent about six to seven months in pre-production and rehearsal. During that time, I was learning everything on the fly. As someone primarily trained as an actor, there was a lot of behind-the-scenes prep work I wasn’t familiar with. I had to make creative decisions in parts of the process I’d never even known existed.
And if I thought pre-production was overwhelming, post-production was an entirely different beast. I was thrown into the deep end of filmmaking and it was either sink or swim.
Now, the film is finished and has been submitted to festivals. At first, I was just proud to have completed something I’d been thinking about and working on for so long. A few months later, I checked on the submissions and was shocked to discover we had already been accepted into six festivals and had won three awards.
And that’s just the beginning. We still have many more festivals to hear back from, and I’m beyond excited to see something I poured so much of my heart and soul into being received so warmly by other artists.
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?
Hi, I’m Eloise Lola Gordon—an actor, director, and writer originally from Denver, Colorado and now based in Los Angeles. My creative life began the moment I could walk. Some of my earliest memories are of playing pretend with friends, inventing intricate storylines for our dolls that spanned months and years. That sense of storytelling, of world-building, has always been second nature to me. I started performing in musical theater at school, and even as a little kindergartener playing a poppy in The Wizard of Oz, something inside me knew I’d be doing this for a long time.
By middle school, I was studying classical texts and technique and eventually made my way to Visionbox Studios, a professional acting studio in Denver. Although I was too young to officially enroll, I auditioned anyway and was accepted into their adult program. That decision changed my life. My first scene was from Proof by David Auburn, and my scene partner was a man in his 50s playing my father. It was the first time I’d acted alongside someone with decades of professional experience, and it gave me a new level of perspective and inspiration. Under the mentorship of Jennifer McCray-Rincon, I grew a deep love for Shakespeare and American realism, and I began to see the power of acting as a lifelong craft.
That passion led me to New York, where I earned my BFA in Dramatic Arts from The New School of Drama. I moved there to immerse myself fully in the world of theater—and I did, continuing to study and perform on stage throughout my time there. But almost immediately, film began pulling me in. I found myself cast in many short films and music videos, and the more I worked on screen, the more I fell in love with the medium. During my junior year, I made my directorial debut by adapting Violet & Daisy by Geoffrey Fletcher into an immersive stage production, which combined my theatrical roots with my growing interest in cinematic storytelling. Although I’m primarily known as an actor, directing has always been a deep passion. It allows me to approach stories from a different angle and explore them in a more holistic, collaborative way.
My work lives at the intersection of theater and film. I’m passionate about telling emotionally honest, character-driven stories, whether I’m acting, directing, or writing. I’ve always believed that storytelling is one of the most human things we can do. It brings people together, fosters empathy, and gives voice to experiences we might otherwise overlook. I’m especially drawn to stories that sit in the gray areas—the places where humor and pain, joy and loss, strength and vulnerability all coexist.
I don’t think of myself as someone who “solves problems” in the traditional sense, but I do believe in creating work that helps people feel seen, reflected, and connected. I aim to bring authenticity to every project I’m part of and build spaces—on screen or on stage—where real emotions and honest storytelling can thrive.
What sets me apart is that I lead with curiosity, compassion, and courage. Whether I’m performing in front of the camera or directing behind it, I care deeply about the collaborative process and about honoring the story we’re telling.
I’m most proud of the relationships I’ve built through my work—the artists I’ve grown with, the audiences I’ve moved, and the younger creatives who’ve told me I made them feel like there was space for them in this industry. I hope anyone who engages with my work sees a little more beauty in their own story.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
I wouldn’t call this a story of resilience, but rather a lesson in how to be human.
During the pandemic, I was filming a naturist comedy called Disrobed. It was daring and edgy—certainly the boldest thing I had done up until that point. We had one day of pickups left before the film could be finished. That morning, I found out that my best friend from college had taken his own life. It’s still hard to describe the depth of pain I felt in that moment, hearing that news and facing the reality that I would never hear his voice again. I didn’t know how to function.
But I had work.
I told the director that something had happened, that I would still come to the shoot and stay as focused as possible, but that it wouldn’t be a day for hanging out or chatting like usual. My body didn’t know how to react. I was acting nude and cracking jokes on camera, yet inside, I was disintegrating.
After we wrapped, I took the subway to Brooklyn to be with friends. As we crossed the bridge, I remember looking out the window at the bustling city below and wanting to scream at everyone to stop moving. I was furious that the world could just keep turning like nothing had happened, while mine was crumbling before my eyes. I spent a long time sitting in that anger.
I lashed out. I desperately needed sensitivity, and when I didn’t receive support in the way I thought I needed, I felt rage. I picked fights with the very people who were trying to be there for me. The pain and negativity I was carrying pushed them away, until very few were still in my corner.
A few months later, I was preparing to film my senior thesis: a one-woman show that combined Shakespearean text and characters with real-life events to speak about clergy abuse. The week before we began shooting, I found out that my best friend from high school had also taken her own life.
All those same feelings rushed back.
Months of what I thought was healing seemed to vanish. But this time, I couldn’t shut down. This was my senior thesis—I was steering the ship, and people were relying on me. I had to learn very quickly how to separate my personal emotions from my creative work. Up until that point, I had always seen the two as inseparable.
This became a pattern over the next few years: serious personal challenges arising at the same time as major creative opportunities. In the beginning, I thought the lesson was “toughen up, life doesn’t stop, so neither should you.” But that mindset left me cold and avoidant of the pain I was carrying.
Eventually, I began opening up about my struggles to the creatives around me, and a deeper truth revealed itself: everyone is going through something. The grace and kindness I needed in my darkest moments—others needed, too.
So I started approaching people with that cliché in mind: treat others the way you’d want to be treated. And slowly, the world began to feel warmer, more manageable. My perspective changed, my relationships improved, and I began to heal—not by isolating myself in pain, but by embracing the shared experience of being human.
You never know when someone is silently hoping for a little bit of grace. And if we can all take care of each other just a little more, we might find that we can heal, together.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.
I’ve always felt lucky to have the support of my friends and family when it comes to my decision to live a creative life. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve begun to realize that there’s a difference between support and understanding. The life of a creative—especially that of an actor—is filled with instability, stress, and unpredictability. When I express my worries during slower periods, someone inevitably suggests I find a more stable job “in the meantime.”
At first, I took this as an insult or an insinuation that I wasn’t good enough to make a life out of this path. But over time, I came to see it differently: it was their own fear being projected—the fear of living a life where tomorrow is never certain.
In college, I was walking around Brooklyn with some friends when I came across a book on the sidewalk. It was a compilation of essays about hope and fear. I flipped to a random page and found The Optimism of Uncertainty by Howard Zinn. In it, he writes about the unpredictability of history and the many times the seemingly impossible has happened and changed the course of the world. That same philosophy can be applied to everyday life: what we don’t know about tomorrow can be terrifying—or it can be beautiful—but we won’t know until it arrives.
As creatives, we have to learn to be comfortable in that state of limbo. From the outside, that mindset doesn’t always make sense. But in truth, everyone faces the fear of the unknown, just in different ways. We each have a choice in how we respond to the uncertainty of tomorrow: we can shrink from it and try to protect ourselves, or we can stay open and curious about the beauty that may be coming our way.
Nothing will ever be perfect, but even in the darkest moments, there is always joy and hope. If we can focus on that, the world becomes a little less frightening.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://EloiseLolaGordon.com
- Instagram: @elolola_
