We recently connected with Nicole Garrabrant and have shared our conversation below.

Nicole, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Do you wish you had started sooner?

To preface I want to say that I do believe that things happen at a certain time for a reason. Maybe there were lessons needed to be learned or personal developments that needed to come to fruition before a certain thing can happen in life. That being said I do wish I started my creative career sooner than I did. I think time and experience gives anyone a leg up in their career and that’s no different for acting and performing especially when networking is such a huge factor. I started my acting career in 2015 when I moved to LA from Illinois after college. For the longest time I was actually in the sciences and thought my career path would take me that direction. I earned a Bachelors of Science in Chemistry thinking I would end up in a lab somewhere. However when I did start working I found myself to be so unhappy and figured there’s nothing to lose at this point so I might as well switch trajectory and follow what my true dream was, which was being in the entertainment industry. When I was younger I always loved performing in front of my family and always dreamt of being in Hollywood, but growing up in the Midwest there was this unwritten belief that Hollywood wasn’t meant for people like us (middle class Midwestern “normal” people) and it was an unattainable dream. I thought I would have to grow up and get a more traditional job. Don’t get me wrong, my parents never told me I couldn’t do whatever I wanted so it’s not their doing! So when I hit my mental rock-bottom working in that hospital lab after college, I came to the realization that I can literally do whatever I want. Why not me? And is it worth being so unhappy just to comply with some silly unwritten sentiment that this life wasn’t for me? Don’t get me wrong, I still love science and I’m proud to have earned that degree but I didn’t move out to LA until I was 25 not knowing anything about the entertainment industry. So sometimes I do wish I used those college years to learn more about the business side of the industry and also start taking acting classes earlier.

I’ve also been performing burlesque for almost 3 years now and honestly I think that came at the right time. I had to go through more of a journey of self-discovery and loving myself more before I could’ve done it. I started to gain more self-confidence and self-love right before I started learning burlesque and performing and producing shows has only built me up more and more.

Nicole, 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?

I am an actress, burlesque performer, and producer. I consider storytelling to be my greatest passion and I consider all of these roles to be considered as such.

I started pursuing acting after I graduated college, where I earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry. I worked in the science field for a little bit after graduating but realized that my true dream and passion was to be in the entertainment industry. I then moved out to LA in 2015 and started taking acting classes and auditioning. Since then I’ve done a lot of commercials, indie features, short films, web series, and immersive experiences, as well as some modeling work. One of my most recent projects (“One Woman Show”) that I’m proud of is a short film that I co-produced with my partner who wrote the script for me to star in. I got to play six different characters in this film which was a great challenge for me but so much fun to do. One of the reasons I became an actress is because I want to live a hundred different lives. I want to go through experiences and be different kinds of people that I may never get to be or experience in my real life.

I began performing burlesque almost 3 years ago under the stage name ‘Nikki Bellanova’. I had seen some shows and just loved the glamour, the costumes, the music, and the confidence that came with the art form. It just kind of clicked with me one day that it was something I should be doing. In most cases I have 100% creative control over all the acts that I do. You don’t always get all that creative control when you’re an actor so this was a great creative outlet for me. Plus I get the thrill of performing live in front of an audience. Burlesque dates back to the 1800s and has a lot of vintage aspects to it and I love everything vintage. I perform both classic and neo burlesque and get booked all over LA and sometimes out-of-town shows. I started producing my own shows in the summer of 2022 and that’s when my production company, House of Bellanova, was born. I now have a monthly classic burlesque show in Hollywood and one weekly show in downtown LA, plus some potential new projects in the works.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

My goal is to be acting in films and TV, and be performing burlesque in large theaters and productions. I love the old theaters down on Broadway in downtown LA so I would love to be performing there in my own show. I want to be respected in my field for my talents and I want people to recognize my name. And if we’re getting real, I want financial freedom from performing, producing, and storytelling. To get paid to do what we love is the dream. All of these things keep me going and drive me to reach my goals. I won’t settle for an ordinary life. I want an extraordinary life and career full of color and crystals and creativity.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

To me it’s rewarding to see people feel things from what I do. A large part of the human experience is feeling emotions whether they’re good or bad. It’s a privilege to be able to feel all sorts of emotions, and as an artist we are capable of instilling or propagating those emotions in people. And with live entertainment like I get to do with burlesque, I get that instant gratification of seeing the look on peoples faces when I put on a show. It’s so satisfying to see people feel things because of you. And obviously with acting in film and TV, we are a part of stories that might really mean something to someone.

I honestly believe that creatives and artists make this world what it is because every single person relies on art in one way, shape, or form to make them feel a certain way. And we are the providers of those things. We have an important job.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Acting/Personal account: @nicole_garrabrant Burlesque: @nikkibellanova Production: @houseofbellanova
• Other: IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm8459082

Image Credits
Adrian Roup, Silent 13 Studios (Alain Matz), Street Signal Media, Still You Photography (Jose Rodriguez)