We recently connected with Julia D’Angelo and have shared our conversation below.

Julia, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your creative career sooner or later?

I didn’t start seriously pursuing acting, music and film until I had finished college. A very “okay, now what?” moment, if you will. I found myself with no more routine, and no more certainty of what the next few years of my life would be like, so I jumped into things full force and dedicated everything to my creative career.

Shortly after, I found myself regretting a lot of the time I spent pre making the decision to pursue this career – college, high school, and even before. It feels like I keep getting older but the creative geniuses of the world keep getting younger, and younger. What would my life have been like if I started taking this seriously when I was 18? 16? 12? I would get so down on myself for – what felt like – “losing” all those years.

After some time of sitting with myself and getting to know where I was really at, I began to understand that there really couldn’t have been any other way. I spent all those years dancing, being a kid, getting hurt, falling in love, experiencing grief, learning, unlearning, learning again, hating myself, loving myself, eating, crying from laughter, feeling everything I thought was possible, and still it feels like I have so much more life to experience. The truth is, when your work is making sense of the experience of living, there is always more living to be done. Always more research. I’m grateful now that I started when I did. I honestly don’t think I would have been ready at any earlier time, as often as I used to dream about it.

So I guess, yes, sometimes I wish I had started my creative career earlier. Sometimes I wish I started it later. But more often than not, I think I started it exactly at the right time.

Julia, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Hi! My name is Julia D’Angelo, I’m a multi-disciplinary performer and artist, with a focus in music, acting and film. I originally came into the arts as a dancer, training intensely in various styles for over 16 years, later specializing more in contemporary and fusion styles. I began acting as an extension of my love for performing on stage, and eventually attained my BFA in Dramatic Arts from the New School in NYC, where I studied acting, writing, directing, and in my senior year, filmmaking.

Branching into filmmaking is really what turned my world upside down, in the best way. I made my first film for my thesis project, and it ended up getting into a few festivals, winning Best Short Film at the New York No Limits Film Festival. This enthusiasm towards my ability to write, direct, act in, produce and ultimately TELL stories in a way that resonates through film was the push I needed at the time. It helped me delve more into film in its entirety, studying directors and actors and seeing them in ways that I hadn’t before. With this newfound drive for cinematic arts, my work as an artist became about melding and weaving these mediums together, which is something I’m continuing to explore everyday.

An area I often work in is music videos, as naturally, music videos are a great way to combine storytelling, dance, music and film. I’ve created numerous videos for my own songs, as well as for other artists. One project I’m very proud of is an 8-minute horror, romance, dance music video I directed for an indie artist, for her song “Radio Silence.” The way we were able to narratively integrate dance and character work into the piece was a very cool experience for me.

I think what makes my work unique is this truly layered approach I take with me into a project, no matter what it is. Implementing. elements of music, dance and theatre into film is exciting, fresh and true to my experience as an artist. I also believe my fundamentals as a person are very rooted in my work, and are often reflected in the things I create. For example, I am a queer woman, striving everyday for radical freedom and acceptance for all people. These ways of life naturally shine through in everything I do, and I am constantly inspired by artists who do this, and continue to put their humanity first, and reflect the times we’re living in as a society.

Ultimately, I am a person of many artistic hats – actor, singer, songwriter, dancer, filmmaker, choreographer, musician, director, writer, producer, editor. For some projects, I wear all of these hats, and for some, I only wear one.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Connection. Between myself, between strangers, between the world. In other words, I’ve never felt lonely when I practice my art, even if I am alone.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I feel like I tell this story a lot but it’s very indicative of “when one door closes, another one opens” and so, I’m going to tell it again.

A major life-career-everything pivot happened to me when I was around 17 years old. At this time, dance was my entire world. I thought, this is all I ever want to do, this is all I can do, and I had the training, skill and passion to really make it a successful career. For some reason, I was fixated on the idea of going to a very particular school/training program. I remember telling myself “if it’s not here, it’s nowhere”, which is just very dramatic and on brand for a teenage perfectionist. As you can guess, I didn’t get into the program. Complete devastation. I ended up taking a year off and working, trying to figure out what I wanted to do. This rejection led to me beginning acting classes, and getting into a few acting programs the year after, in which I accepted the New School and moved to New York. The rest is, as they say, history.

It’s always silly to look back on because I can’t imagine my life taking me any other way, of course, but at the time, this rejection and pivot away from dance felt incomprehensible, like I was going back 12 steps. Now, I’m beyond thankful I didn’t get in. One of many reasons to just trust the process.

Contact Info:

• Website: juliadangelo.com
• Instagram: @juliadangelo
• Youtube: @julia.dangelo

Image Credits
Kyrstan Brandt, Em Messana, Owen Kibby, Derek Matar, Cece Chan, Andrew Liu, Noah Blau