We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Olivia Talbott. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Olivia below.

Olivia, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

The most meaningful and healing project I’ve worked on as an Astrologer has been work I’ve done with an eating disorder support group for young women. The two founders of this support group collective reached out to me in 2020 and I ended up doing mini readings for 12 young women. One of the many shadows in my life I have struggled with was an eating disorder of my own, from age 16 to age 26. I struggled with a combination of both anorexia and bulimia. No one knew, not my boyfriend of 7-years through that time, not my mom, not my best friend, no one. Once I moved to LA alone at age 22 with no friends or family to greet me, my eating disorder was able to grow even more consuming as I both isolated myself while feeling and being genuinely more isolated. My acting and improv classes helped, and later on the sketch and improv groups I became a part of, and the Astrology learning and community building, active leftist organizing, and standup I was doing really fed me positively and socially. But LA is a transient city. My first 4 friends I made in LA moved within the following year and a half. Their moves were staggered, like little daggers every three months in pit of my stomach. I would be left again wondering if they would be replaced, and how long that would take. This was happening while I was healing from the end of a 7-year relationship with my first love and desperately trying to stay above water waiting tables. I come from a working-class, single mother household in rural Appalachia in southwest Virginia. My experiences in restaurants were what one with an imagination might expect – not good. I choose to believe the universe was testing me, asking me how badly I wanted this. On paper I was able to do enough to consider myself successful enough to be worthy of choosing this very difficult path. Worth was big work for me. I maintained employment, I took class, and I was actively performing. But if ever alone after midnight, I was usually bingeing and purging. My hormones were erratically unstable. For quite some time, I was always starting over it seemed. I am grateful to say that now I have a handful of profound, healthy, and dependable friendships, it took years. And I am endlessly grateful for them and that. But I know what it is to build that. Maybe that’s the gift. With the ED support group, I got to see myself in these young women. I was able to remember what it was to be where they were. In Astrology charts, we have many placements we can look at for control, trauma, and upheaval. These three, in that order in-my-not-clinical-opinion, are the three most significant factors to look at in ED work. In all of these girl’s charts I noticed similar themes most often with two planets – Saturn and Pluto. I got to explore the depths of different connections with each young woman to the two planets that most ruled those three themes. It was really powerful, heart opening stuff. Seeing them light up as I spoke up to them, pointing out all of their different potential talents was some of the coolest work I’ve ever been able to do in my life. Astrology is powerful in it’s nuance and individual narrative for and of each of us that choose it. At it’s base, it’s storytelling. At it’s rich depths, it’s the narrative arc we live within, that allows re-writing in any way we see fit. It is, the most liberating, spiritual personality & psychology guide and life map we have access to. It is older than religious script and it is fiercely and infinitely accessible to all, for all.

The most meaningful work I’ve done as an Actor was in a play my friend Jeremiah Munsey wrote, called Pagan Century. Jeremiah is a fellow Appalachian. My friend Alissa introduced us. He was the first person I had met in LA that felt like home. The story takes place outside of Morgantown, West Virginia. My character was this sensitive and complicated version of Megan Kelly meets Busy Phillips. She was, very distant, and very close to me. The play was a political drama that wrote an Appalachian friend group as layered, educated, and vital with the pulsing life force of the mountains. If anyone wants to put it on, let me know. The script is outstanding :)

The most meaningful project I got to work on as an organizer/activist was a campaign for Reform LA Jails in LA. The campaign sought to achieve Sheriff oversight by a collective of LA citizens. It doesn’t sound radical, but it was at the time. Besides the Bernie campaign, it was no doubt the coolest work I got to do politically. We used deep canvassing, which had only previously been used in the gay marriage campaign years prior. Deep canvassing was like, ringing someone’s door bell, earning their trust with your own sharing, and walking them through a set of questions in order to get them to go deeper into their own beliefs. So many left different. I left different. I got to hear so many stories. I got to really be with people, some of whom needed a witness to their being. It meant so much to me. I learned so much about communication, leadership, and what it is to try to prioritize all of your ideals at once, while failing over-and-over to do so. The group I did this work with was called White Ppl 4 Black Lives. I was waiting tables at Doomie’s Home Cookin’ and Matt McGorry came in one night at like 2am with his friends. He’s an actor. He was on Orange is the New Black and he’s actively anti-racist. I had known this about him. I told him how much I loved his activism and he invited me to check out the collective. He wrote it down on his receipt. It took me a few months, but I finally did. That led me to the campaign.

Olivia, 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?

Hi! I’m Olivia Hope Talbott! I’m an Actor, Astrologer, Writer, Appalachian girl, & more! I’ve known I wanted to move to LA and be an actor since I can remember. My first serious acting role was in high school, from a scene in The Lovely Bones where I played both Susie Salmon and Mr. Harvey. I graduated college in May 2013, and I worked at The Cheesecake Factory in my college town in Virginia until January 2014 when I moved here. I had a bit of acting class background, and had done a little theatre, but LA really broke me in. I got my start studying the Stella Adler technique at the Art of Acting Studio. Then I spent years learning how to really be an embodied actor at Anthony Meindl’s Actor’s Studio. I went on to start and complete the UCB improv program, advancing into the Advance level after being told by my primary teacher that I was meant to do comedy. Since then I’ve performed on an all women improv/sketch team and a musical improv team. I’ve done theatre around LA, characters, and stand-up. I am most proud of my tenacity, the way I show up in my weekly scene study at Berg Studio, my comedy writing, and my performance in the last play I did, Pagan Century. I played a character that I describe as Megan Kelly meets Busy Phillips. My fellow Appalachian friend and fiercely talented playwright, Jeremiah Munsey wrote the play. It’s a political drama following a group of 30-something childhood friends from Morgantown, West Virginia reuniting for the last time. I can do anything creative anyone is interested in seeing me for. There are many things that set me apart, but I think my passion, tenacity, comedic timing, and eccentricities are the best of them. Hire me! I’d love to collaborate!

I launched my Astrology business in December 2019. In 2014 I decided I would leave restaurant work for good. I knew it would take years, but I decided that I would either learn Astrology and become an Astrologer, a lifelong calling, or I would become a doula, a passion of mine. I knew that my side job had to nourish me, and that waiting tables was only exhausting me in mostly abusive environments. My favorite podcast host at the time had Debra Silverman (a famous Astrologer) on. She mentioned a scholarship program. I decided it was a sign. I applied and decided that if I got it, I’d learn Astrology. If I didn’t, I would do a doula program I had looked at. I got the scholarship for both the beginner and intermediate level and I was off to the races. Since then I’ve studied with Gaye Nelson, Rebecca Gordon, Kira Tambourn, Jessica Lanyadoo, and so many more. I started attending class weekly at The Carroll Righter school of Astrology, and under Gaye Nelson and other NCGR teachers as often as I could. I did free readings in exchange for yelp reviews for a year and a half before launching. My business is where I am able to channel my calling of service and intuition. Sharing Astrology with my clients, and anyone who will listen, brings me to life. I offer different kinds of readings, including a full reading, which is 2-2.5 hours and includes the natal birth chart reading, the progressed moon reading, the solar return reading (your year ahead), and your transit reading (predictions for a year ahead). I also offer individual readings such as love readings, relationship readings for romantic and nonromantic readings, timing readings for starting a new job, etc., a relocated and Astrocartography reading if you live in a different city than the one you were born in, kid’s readings, group readings for bridal parties, slumber parties, and more, birthday readings for a year ahead, gifted readings, and generally whatever you’re looking for that falls into these categories. I’ve taught a few classes and I love teaching. On February 22, 2023 I am teaching “An Astrological Love & Romance Workshop” with Girls Nite Live at 7pm eastern, 4pm pacific. My Astrology work is deep, detailed, playful, and generous. The average market Astrology reading is 1 hour long. My intro reading starts at 2 hours. I don’t believe in fatal readings or deterministic predictions. I do believe in your potential, your inner child, your play, your intuition, and your ability to liberate yourself with the right information.

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

Three months before I moved to LA, in 2013, I was a server at a local Cheesecake Factory. I told my Cheesecake Factory co-workers I was moving to LA to be an Actor. I was prepared to be disbelieved. I was, but I knew I was going, and that was all that mattered. Once my Cheesecake Factory General Manager got word of my plans, he started actively mocking them publicly. He would mention how hard it was to live in Los Angeles. He would ask me about my long-term boyfriend and say that either we would break up, or I would run home as fast as I left to be with him. His name was Andy. Andy had always treated me like I was stupid, and gone out of his way to harass me when he had too much time on his hands. But this felt different. It was personal and specific. He wanted me to feel small. He wanted me to question myself. I did. He demoted me from server to host a month before I was supposed to leave. It was terrifying. My roommate worked at Hooter’s and got me a job there, but that was even worse in different ways. I kept my host shifts at Cheesecake Factory so that I could have a transfer job in California. In January 2014, my boyfriend drove me from southwest Virginia to La Mirada California in 3.5 days through rain and snow. I had $1,800. I had submitted my paperwork to my Cheesecake Factory managers in early December of 2013 for a transfer job to the Cheesecake Factory Anaheim. I would live with two roommates I had spoken to only over the phone from roommates.com. I moved in on a Saturday. The following Monday I drove to the Cheesecake Factory Anaheim to find out that they had not heard from any of my managers or received my paperwork, and that they were overstaffed for slow season. I left frustrated, but assumed a mistake had been made. I had submitted the paperwork a month before. I assumed Andy was involved, but chose not to focus on that. I went home and applied for other jobs, and immediately called my old Cheesecake Factory to let them know that the paperwork hadn’t been received. No one would allow me to talk to Andy and the other managers simply said that he was the one who had to submit the transfer. This went on for another week. I told my best friend, who still worked there. A week later, she broke into the manager’s office and found my paperwork that had not been submitted. She took photos of it and confronted Andy. He submitted it, but I had been without a job for almost a month and my mom couldn’t help me. I was seething. I began work at the Cheesecake Factory Anaheim and I decided to fight. I reached out to Cheesecake Factory corporate and told them what had happened. Corporate seemed apathetic and said that I would need at least 3, but as many as possible corroborating witnesses and other employees who had been similarly abused who both still worked there, and worked there when I did. They said they would need to put their testimonies in writing for them to be taken seriously and that I would need to gather them all to submit. This became my second, part-time, unpaid job for the following three months. I found more ease and allies that I had expected in gathering a few people to submit reports. I found out that this was the 5th case that had been brought to corporate on Andy, and that all of them had been brought by women. After months of work, I submitted my report. Cheesecake Factory responded feigning complete ignorance and saying that they were looking into it. I found out, months later, that Andy had been fired and was working at Cracker Barrel now. Apparently corporate report number 5 was the final straw. I have many similar stories. This is one where I won. But I have many traumatic stories where I lost. But I really love this one.

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

I strive to bring people to life and joy through my creative work. A more specific intention I have in my storytelling ambitions is to tell more class conscious poor and working class stories from the perspective of those people. This has been on my heart since I can remember.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://millennialastrologer.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theoliviahope/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/olivia-talbott-429a44158/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/livie_hope
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/your-millennial-astrologer-west-hollywood-2
• Other: Upcoming workshop: https://www.girlsnitelive.com/event/star-crossed-love-an-astrological-love-romance-workshop/ In development: Astrology newsletter & monthly horoscopes. Send any questions or inquiries to millennialastrologer@gmail.com

Image Credits
Headshots by Austin Cieszko, other photos mostly screenshots from other work, other photos to come