We recently connected with Martina Monti and have shared our conversation below.

Martina, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

Choosing to move to the United States to pursue my acting career has been the biggest risk I’ve ever taken. I’m originally from Italy, but I always wanted to move to Los Angeles. Leaving everything behind to start a new life it’s not an easy choice. I know I could’ve stayed home, close to my friends and family, studied at a local university and worked and lived in the same city where I was born. But I also know that this choice would have never made me happy. I always felt the need to live an adventurous life, and, without risk, there is no adventure. Exploring the unknown, facing all the challenges of living alone abroad, working in an industry in which you don’t know when the next job is going to come can be scary, because it doesn’t give you any certainty. But when nothing is certain, anything is possible. I knew I could have risked failing, not finding my space in this huge city, feeling alone, struggling, not being able to work or succeed. But, on the other hand, I knew that I would not have risked regretting my choice. Because, even during the hardest times, I’ve always been happy and proud of the path I decided to follow.

Martina, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m an actress based in Los Angeles and, before moving to the United States, I studied Film (Bachelor Degree) and Screenwriting in Italy. I moved to the United States in August 2019, and this has been the best decision I’ve taken so far. I graduated from UCLA Extension (Acting Certificate), and then I started working in Hollywood. After my first project, in which I worked alongside actress Gayathri Pusuluri, I booked many other roles. I starred in short films (I’m Drowning, Proof, Ghost Town Shore, Stolen Wishes, Gabby’s Maze, Dead End, Seen), commercials, TV Show pilots (Studio 205, Days of Death) and feature films (Blue Moon Romance). I’m also a published author in Italy (Biblion Edizioni) and a screenwriter. I wrote the script of “Seen”, a twenty minutes short film about sexual assault, that I produced and acted in as well.
Before starting my acting career, I lived in eight different cities, both in Europe and in the US, like New York, Amsterdam, San Francisco, Rome and Bologna.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Some time ago I booked a lead role in a TV Show. I was so happy. That was my first audition ever so everything was very exciting. I prepared for the role for weeks, I used Method Acting to explore and create the character and, finally, we started shooting. One day, unexpectedly, I received an email announcing that the show had been canceled. I was devastated, all my expectations and the work I put in my preparation had been just useless. I felt so discouraged, and all my dreams seemed unreachable.
But I didn’t give up. I told myself that, If I had been able to obtain that role, I could’ve booked new ones in the future.
Now, some months later, I acted in many other projects, and I’m very happy I didn’t let that one unfortunate episode have the chance to ruin my future career.

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.

Often non-creatives struggle to understand the idea of a non stable job. Being an actress doesn’t only mean working on set when you book a role. It means working every day to audition, training to improve your craft, watching films and TV Shows to stay updated, rehearsing, participating in networking events, creating your own projects, and so on. It’s a job in which you don’t get paid for every hour you spend working, It’s a job in which you have no certainty, you don’t know when the next time on set is going to be, and you have to be very flexible with your schedule and always be able to adapt. Many non-creatives believe that, if you don’t physically go to work every day, that means you’re not working. I’ve been asked so many times how I spend my day and, when I explain it, people seem not to understand. Or they might ask if I’ll “find a job”. These kinds of questions can make you feel very frustrated and uncomfortable, especially when there is some criticism in them, and the best advice I can give to someone in this situation is to be very specific and explain exactly how this job works. And, if this explanation is not going to clarify other people’s doubts or clear their skepticism, I suggest remembering that their approval is not required to succeed as a creative.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Martina Monti (@always_smarty) | Instagram
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm13829139/

Image Credits
Olivia Martini Matt Marcheski Scott Lewis Jason Chun Lee