We recently connected with Kami Fillman and have shared our conversation below.

Kami, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

As I’m sure everyone experienced, when I was a child, I was often asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. If you rummaged through my childhood diaries I would scribble the same thing I told everyone: a singer or dentist. I was performing for my parents regularly and receiving positive feedback, but at school I was laughed at for walking the perimeter of the playground and belting out Hannah Montana. I started doing musicals with my community theatre when I was about 8, and instantly fell in love with combining singing, dancing and a third thing, acting. I will never forget my mom driving me home from rehearsal one night and asking, “Which one is your favorite of the 3?” I thought for a moment before responding, “Acting, because I get to be anyone.” When I got to high school and I had to seriously decide what I wanted to be, my answer was the same to my mom’s question in the car. As an indecisive person, I could see myself doing anything I set my mind to; I just had to pick. I went to a summer drama intensive the summer before my senior year of high school at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and that confirmed it. I will just have to be an actor so I can do everything and anything. I knew when I was little that it was my dream, but that summer I knew it had to be my reality.

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?

Hello!!!! I’m Kami Fillman. I’m a freckled southern belle from a tiny town on the coast of North Carolina. I grew up doing plays and musicals, taking dance and never being able to shut up. I went to college at Elon University also in North Carolina and graduated with a BFA in Acting and BA in Arts Administration in 2021. I like to refer to myself as an actor over actress, always have, but recently I have more enjoyed being identified as an entertainer. I, above anything else, love to make people laugh. I tried my hand at stand up in college and hope to face my fear of attempting it here in LA soon. I moved to Los Angeles after graduation in the fall of 2021, but fell in love with the city while doing internships here in 2019. Since moving here, I have worked mainly in commercials and background work. I got my first manager and agent in 2023 despite the strike, which was very exciting for me, and I’m hoping will propel me forward towards more theatrical work. I tend to thrive in the comedic bestfriend role, but love challenging myself to play the dark and twisty dramatic roles. I am a very malleable and adaptable performer, praying to get a note from a director that can help me figure out exactly what I need to do. Sometimes I like to refer to the work as “troublemaking” because its so much fun to be bad!! I tend to get told I do things in a different way, which I’m learning is a good thing.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I am pretty anxious, indecisive person in my everyday life. Acting is the one place I get to be decisive and not worry about the outcome, because it’s all play. My creative journey is often an attempt to convince my regular self to be as courageous and bold as the characters I bring to life. Every time I read a script, or even a character breakdown, I look to see who I’m becoming and what part of myself I can bring to it. But I earn a lot from the characters I get to play. Acting is almost an act of self love for myself. For the little girl who sang around the playground. I think a lot of actors feel the pressures of becoming who the casting director wants or who they THINK they want, but I feel the freedom to express myself in a way that maybe I’m too scared to in my everyday life. I also, of course, do love the external validation from peers or casting or an audience of doing a good job at conveying something. But my goal isn’t that validation, it’s that camaraderie of escapism. Maybe I can convince someone else they can do anything too – or distract them from their personal anxiety too.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

When I first moved to LA, I only knew other actors or peers that also went to Elon and moved here. I had no real connections besides my friends who maybe met somebody out here. Even just finding a regular day job felt impossible at first, let alone finding industry connections to boost my career. For the first month I was living off my summer’s worth of savings and trying to find a job. I interviewed at restaurant after restaurant all over this city, (living in the valley and driving to the westside at 3 pm for a 15 minute job interview was soooo not cute), with no luck. My first job here I only got because my friend from college worked there! I felt pretty defeated for the first 6 months. I had no agent, no steady job, and not many friends. My family was 3000 miles away and all of my friends from home had real big girl jobs and were making big girl money. But I thought about how this was my DREAM when I was little. And I was making it a reality! I was paying my own bills, I was grinding job to job: training to be a bartender, working on a tiki boat, babysitting, delivering UberEats, AND auditioning, all auditions I was getting myself. I continued to work hard and eventually got a steady job at a restaurant making decent tips, joined an acting class and started building a community for myself. Through networking with friends I got my current manager and agent, and also collabed with friends to film some stuff. Focusing on the positives and being proud of the mundane really helped me find my place in the city and overcome a lot of self doubt, which was only holding me back.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @kamifillman
• Twitter: @FillmanKami

Image Credits
Huebner Headshots Sophia Pernito