We recently connected with Noemy Del Mar and have shared our conversation below.

Noemy , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What do you think it takes to be successful?

I believe a huge part of becoming successful is needing some level of delusion. Not because success is unrealistic but because, I think, we as a society whether at school, in public, at work, or at home do unfortunately vibrate on a lower level with a lot of self-limiting beliefs to keep us in our familiarity zone.

Step one would be to know what you want and to go for it and that’s where the delusional part would kick in, to go for what you WANT. Not what you believe you need, or what you believe you can achieve, or what’s within your reach, or which path is the least risky. Knowing what we want, (and also recognizing that our wants can change throughout our lifetimes), and completely going for it, through hardships and successes, will lead us into paths of self-development where we get to know ourselves and the world. Delusion, as it turns out to be, is one of the most important aspects of our success, otherwise, we can get stuck in our limited realms of “reality” or hide behind perfectionism.

Noemy , 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?

My name is Noemy Del Mar and regarding my career and business, I am an actor. The unfortunate part of being a professional actor is that you don’t get to act 90% of your time in your career. So the very thing you want to do, that made you choose your path is the least part of your business. Being an actor requires more branding, networking, submitting for auditions, and the auditioning process itself. I feel like my truest self mostly on stage or when I sit down and observe my fellow artists. There was never any clear point in my life that made me choose this path, it’s like a bug you either got it or you don’t.

The journey of my acting career has made me realize that I use acting as a way of truly being perceived, through embodying characters, I allow all aspects of me and my being to be seen on stage. That might sound scary but the connection you get to feel with yourself, your scene partners, and your audience, from incorporating and showing the most hidden aspects of your emotions and personality, is something that I believe all humans are striving for. I just get to do that as a career.

Of course getting big roles, great salaries, amazing scripts, and working with a great cast and crew is what we actors are all striving for, but from being on sets that pay well, theatre productions that have great reputations, and winning honorary actress awards, none of these things have ever given me a sense of fulfillment. The productions become just another work requirement, the people and places you looked up to lose their shine, and the awards you receive are just plastic with your name written on it. It was empty, I felt nothing from them, it was an emptiness that I didn’t expect to feel from my work.

It was seeing the passion of my fellow artists, being there for their artistic breakthroughs, and the camaraderie of caring for our work that I still to this day bring up and talk about. These are the things, as it turns out, that are worth remembering. So if there’s any advice from this article for any fellow artist it would be to find people who care about you and the work as much as you do or more. The purpose of it all, as it comes down to it, is finding your tribe!

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I believe that our businesses, careers, and life are all connected. When one aspect changes it affects every other aspect of our lives. In 2020 I was on a work visa working in the film industry when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and there was a complete lockdown in Los Angeles. I was on a film set for a commercial on March 19th when all of us got the news that FilmLA, the office for film permits, closed down. Meaning that no professional productions would be allowed to be filmed until they opened up. I remember all of us looking around, not believing the rumors at first, realizing that we were all now unemployed. My visa required me to work within the industry to be renewed which was now impossible.

With no ability to apply for unemployment, I quickly had to find a new job, and the only businesses that were open in L.A. during lockdown were food stores and hospitals. I went three times to this one local Russian food store until they hired me and for three months I was a cashier during the peak of the pandemic, not knowing what my future had in store. Nobody knew when the pandemic would end and I had no idea of how I could renew my visa. After three months I decided to leave my life behind in L.A. and move to Miami. I knew some people in Miami who I could live with until I could figure out what to do next.

For the next three years in Miami, I put everything behind me and I put my career to the side until I finally got my green card in 2023. For three years straight I was in survival mode, in limbo, not being able to continue on my chosen career path, not knowing where I would have to move next or how I would even renew my work visa. This was the longest time that I had to pivot from my career.

I remember choosing not to work on anything creative, not taking any classes, or going to any networking events. I remember knowing that I couldn’t be involved in anything regarding my career, in case my green card application got denied. It’s the same as putting a lot of effort into a relationship knowing you can’t be with that person. I wouldn’t have survived another heartbreak regarding my visa, especially not after my career had just started to rise in L.A. before the pandemic hit. It was a psychological and emotional need for me to put my career on pause until I had my green card.

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

My experience led me to develop a new understanding of resilience. For me to have been able to persevere in my career I eventually had to stop fighting my odds and surrender to my circumstances to be able to take the next appropriate step. At first, I was fighting it all and it led me into a deep depression, looking back I realize now that it was grief that I felt, the grief of losing my identity. The person I thought I was, who I had worked for so many years for, wouldn’t be available to me without a U.S. work permit. I had identified myself with my career as an artist, an actress, and a performer. My work, which I had been working hard for, networking, studying, and mastering for years was now unavailable just as I had begun my journey and seen the fruits of my labor.

Looking back it was a temporary setback but at the moment there was too much uncertainty, there was no light at the end of the tunnel, no guarantee that I would be able to work within the film industry in the U.S. within the coming years. I have always been a hard worker and I’ve always believed in finding solutions, never giving up, and pushing back against all the odds. Surrendering ended up being the strongest and most difficult thing I did. By letting go of my ideas of how my life was supposed to look and be, where I should work and live, in letting go of my dreams, I was able to deal with my circumstances instead of wasting all my energy fighting against them. Instead of feeling like I gave up, surrendering gave me a feeling of freedom.

With that freedom, realizing that my career was just on pause, I was able to stay on track on my path. Life works in mysterious ways, when I stopped fighting and looking for answers my life started to change. I met the love of my life who’s now my husband, which I never would have unless I hadn’t moved to Miami in 2020 and worked in a restaurant where I met him. In letting go of my plans and surrendering to my circumstances I was able to stay persistent and resilient in my career path while my life was moving on and flourishing in ways I never could have imagined. It all somehow works out in the end, just not the way you imagine it.

A great analogy to describe how it felt would be like jumping over a ravine.

Imagine you have to jump over a ravine so you prepare, you get strong, you practice for years and then the day comes. The day you’ve been preparing so hard for has arrived and just as you believe in your strengths and everything seems aligned you go for the big jump. Just as you’re about to jump the earth beneath cracks and you fall into the ravine. You fall into the unknown, believing it’s all over until a branch hanging out of the side of the ravine catches you. Now you’re just hanging, looking down at your doom and when looking up seeing the impossibility of getting to the other side of the ravine. You’re saved from falling but you have no way of getting out of your situation. And the hanging feels like forever until you get tired of looking down or up so you look to the sides and notice a small bridge, grown out of tree roots. This bridge is a path to the other side of the ravine. As you get on the bridge and begin to walk you feel the disappointment of when the earth cracked beneath you, the wasted years you spent preparing for the jump, and the failure of not being one of the people who jumped over the ravine. But as you continue to the other side you notice the view, the beautiful horizon that only the path on the bridge could show you. The walk becomes a sightseeing. Jumping over the ravine couldn’t possibly bring you this view and you realize that the cracking of the earth was a blessing in disguise. To this day you are never able to understand why some people get to jump over the ravine and scratch their knees, and others fall to their doom, while others get to walk the bridge with the beautiful view.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.noemydelmar.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/noemy_delmar/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/naomi.splawskaja
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/noemy-delmar-279988140/

Image Credits

Headshot by Joshua M Shelton at www.headshotsla.com or https://www.instagram.com/headshot_la/

Some behind-the-scenes photography by Grafkina Productions at https://www.instagram.com/grafkina_photography/