Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jenny Piersol. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Jenny, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. One of our favorite things to hear about is stories around the nicest thing someone has done for someone else – what’s the nicest thing someone has ever done for you?

The kindest thing anyone has ever done for me actually inspired the short film I wrote, produced, and starred in called Dear Simone. I worked with an amazing therapist whom I adored for seven years, and when she closed her practice because of a terminal illness, she called and asked, “Is there anything you’ve ever wanted to ask me?”

It was a beautiful thing to do, and she spent the next 45 minutes gifting me a goodbye. That final conversation is what ultimately inspired me to write a film, but I quickly realized that I couldn’t do her justice as a main character, having only known her from the perspective of a patient. So her character became a conduit for a different relationship in the film to heal. Her words and guidance are woven throughout the film, which follows a strained relationship between two siblings that transforms when one of them starts secretly writing letters to the other, posing as their former therapist. When the ruse leads to the reveal, it turns out both siblings have some confessions to make.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m an actress, writer, voiceover artist, and singer who creates generous spaces for others to honor their wounds en route to healing. That has manifested itself metaphorically in the work I do as an artist – and literally in the one year I spent working as a patient liaison at a hospital. I’ve been fortunate to play roles that allow me to explore this facet of humanity (Sally in Talley Folly’s is a great example). As an actor and as a human being, I’m always more interested in the fault line than the façade.

One of my passions as an actor is making heightened language accessible to a modern audience. I recently got to dive into the Edgar Allan Poe adapted play Nevermore at Gretna Theatre, bringing a gender-bent version of The Black Cat (and its lovable but volatile villainess) to life in a way that was completely delightful.

I spent a considerable chunk of my childhood swishing my long hair back and forth in the bathtub as I belted out The Little Mermaid, but I didn’t really envision a life in the spotlight. I was pretty shy when I was little; it was a near miracle that my mom got me out of my shell long enough to attend my first dance class. That started to shift in high school, when I experienced a tragic loss and got cast in my first stage role within the same week. I found those few precious hours of after-school rehearsals to be a solace for the soul – something about pretending to be someone else gave me a respite from real life, and I fell in love with the experience of acting. Even so, I didn’t intend to pursue acting as a career, and in fact, I initially fought my mom on the practicality of it, until she encouraged me with equal parts love and exasperation, “You have the rest of your life to be practical, live a little!” Something about that finally flipped the switch for me. I moved to New York after graduating college and have never looked back!

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

I discovered Vedic meditation through Emily Fletcher’s Ziva Meditation course ten years ago, and meditating twice a day for the last decade has changed the game for me. It shortens the length of time between idea to action, it expands my capacity to navigate stress which enables me to tackle bigger scale projects with grace (like writing, producing, and starring in a film!), and it provides deep rest that my body has come to crave. Life as an artist is not linear, and that journey can vacillate between exciting and humbling. Anchoring into a daily meditation practice has been grounding for me.

One of the other resources I highly value is Marisa Michelson’s work in vocal de-armoring. She is a voice teacher (in addition to a host of other talents), but I think it’s more accurate to call her a liberator of sound. She has completely changed the relationship I have to my singing and speaking voice.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

There is a line in the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, where Dumbledore says to Harry about his son, “You must see him as he is, Harry. You must look for what’s wounding him.”

I remember reading that for the first time and my heart stopping: one of the mantras I have long used to ease my nerves before a performance is “Find the wound.” One of the most beautiful things I get to do as an artist is provide an avenue for audience members to feel. Feelings are not always an easy feat, and I think art provides this parallel universe that people can use to process their own journeys. I think art has the potential to be incredibly healing that way.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.jennypiersol.com
• Instagram: @jenny.piersol
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3HHOZRqx2jlsxgmoEWKBXA

Image Credits
Carly Piersol Miguel Salcedo Mike Cicchetti Russ Rowland Elizabeth Randolph Andy Whitlatch