We recently connected with Julianna Robinson and have shared our conversation below.
Julianna, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s jump back to the first dollar you earned as a creative? What can you share with us about how it happened?
It was my first year of college and I was doing a play called La Bête with the Santa Barbara Shakespeare Company. My character, Dorine, only spoke in monosyllables that rhymed with the word blue (shoe, knew, slew, boo, rue). After the show a woman came up to me to say she loved my wacky performance. She was a casting director in LA casting a Paramount Pictures Star Trek film and asked me if I’d come down to LA and audition. Yes, please. So I drove to LA and had a bizarre audition where the director yelled at me and called me names and I was asked to yell back and intimidate him. Yep, I can do that! So…I got the job, not knowing anything about the role, or if there was pay. Little did I know I would be playing a blue Andorian space cadet named Vanda M’Giia wearing the wardrobes from the original Star Trek TV show, having my makeup designed by legend Michael Westmore, getting fast tracked into SAG, getting paid SAG scale plus daily overtime (thanks to 5 hours a day in and out of makeup). I made enough money in those 3 weeks of filming to make get my SAG health insurance for that year, take my mom on a cruise to the Caribbean and send myself to London for a semester abroad of Shakespeare School.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I grew up a broke, blue collar kid in Reno, Nevada. Neither of my parents went to college. They separated when I was in elementary school, my dad moved to another state and my mom had to work several jobs to make ends meet including working at a casino, a departments store and cleaning doctor’s offices in the middle of the night. My earliest creative ambition was to be a dancer. We couldn’t afford proper ballet classes but the YMCA down the street offered free classes for kids after school so there I was, knock-kneed and awkward with “good feet” but “big thighs”, dreaming of pointe shoes and tutus. I got my first acting gig when I was 8 doing a commercial for a local county fair called the Country Bear Jamboree. I was paid in stuffed bears. It wasn’t until high school when the acting bug really bit me. My high school drama teacher Nancy Rue was not just a brilliant drama teacher but she was also funny and down to earth and treated us like adults. She was encouraging and enthusiastic without being condescending. I did the “no more wire hangers” monologue from Mommy Dearest in class and I knew then that I wanted to be an actor. When it was time to go to college I received a couple of scholarships to arts schools in both Boston and Chicago but I was determined to go to California so I had my eye on Santa Barbara. I got into USCB and thought maybe I’d do the smart thing and do pre-med. I didn’t want to be a failure in life. So that first year, I had a lot of biology, anatomy, astronomy, statistics and math classes. I hated it. I saw a poster on the wall outside the theatre department for auditions for the BFA acting program. Yes, that’s for me. So…I auditioned and got in. The program was highly competitive and prestigious. Our class started out with 36 students. At every quarter we were reviewed by our professors. Anyone not keeping up with projects or taking creative risks was cut. Our class graduated with 17. I was determined to be famous and successful by 23. But…Moving to LA was tough, really tough. That BFA program was comforting and nurturing, despite being competitive and LA was cruel and big. I lived with my brother for a few months, then my car, then my friend Mandy’s couch then an apartment in Hollywood that I couldn’t afford. I worked at the Laugh Factory, Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, Jozu Restaurant, Joe’s Restaurant, Hal’s Restaurant…so many restaurants!!
I made sure to take acting classes regularly and casting director workshops and get new headshots (all which cost money, lots of money). Things were sure to go right for me soon. But they didn’t. I was sexually harassed by agents and managers, told I was too fat, too short, too ugly, too pretty, my nose was crooked, I was too “generic”, I should embrace my “white trash essence” more and that I’d get more jobs if I “showed up naked for auditions”. But these things never broke me. I walked out of offices and told people to f**k off when they were abusive. I could have gotten a lot more acting jobs if I had been willing to be a little less Me. So, it took a long time but I finally came to the realization that I needed a better survival job if I was going to survive as an actor. I was doing a play with a woman who taught Pilates. I had no idea what pilates was but I knew I wanted to do what she did because one night after a show she bought drinks for all the actors and I thought, I want to be the kind of person who buys people’s drinks. So I put a pilates teacher training program on a credit card and learned to teach pilates. A couple years later I opened a studio with my friend Ashley Walters and that studio grew into two studios and much success. I was finally financially able to pay for all those classes, rent, etc and I was in a job that I could leave when I needed to and go to auditions, because it was my own business. In 2019, frustrated by the lack of auditions I was getting (getting old in LA is a real thing) I had an idea for a short film. I wrote up a few pages and gave it to my husband, the actual writer. He said, this isn’t a script, but I see where you’re going and what your vision is. He wrote it up in script format and encouraged me to direct it. So…that year I directed my first short film. And boy did I get the bug for directing. I thought I loved acting. Jump forward to today I have now directed 8 short films. My current short film, Audrey, is doing a festival run and will be screening in two Academy Award Qualifying film festivals this summer (LA Shorts Fest and HollyShorts Fest).
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
In 2020 a worldwide pandemic hit and shut down all business and normal life as we knew it. I had a thriving Pilates studio in Santa Monica that I was forced to close. I paid rent and teachers for a few months but without the business open and running I couldn’t afford it anymore and I had to permanently close my doors. It was heart breaking. But…I pivoted. I sold most of the equipment, kept a few pieces, moved it all into my home and taught there entirely via Zoom for a year and a half and then slowly my clients started to filter over to my house. Now, they take pilates with cats lying on them and I have a better commute.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
Creativity is a conduit for communication for me, and many artists. I am a natural introvert. Expressing myself and my varied emotions has always been difficult. People who don’t know me might well describe me as moody. But truth be told I’m just an actor who needs the canvas of character to be able to function in my own well of emotion. And expression is rewarding and it’s a relief to find a way to communicate when you often feel trapped by your own “stuff”.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.juliannarobinson.com
- Instagram: @julianna_e_robinson
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JuliannaElizabethRobinson
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julianna-robinson-a7943624
- Twitter: @jruberstar
- Youtube: @juliannarobinson9483
