We were lucky to catch up with Rachel Nicol recently and have shared our conversation below.

Rachel , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

It was the winter/spring semester of my freshman year at a small university in Northern California in 2022 when I started to come to terms with the fact that I had no idea where I was headed with my life. I’d graduated highschool the year before in the wilderness of British Columbia, where my family now lives, and I headed off to take a popular course at a university my parents had approved for me (fun fact: now I’m a non-practicing licensed lifestyle coach). After the fall semester and that course were over, I decided to return to the school to take general education credits in the beginning of 2022. Seeing everyone around me pursuing their various degrees of education, nursing, or biology, I quickly became discouraged and at a loss for what to do. So I took a gap year after the close of the winter/spring semester and went home to BC to figure out what my next steps were.

I have always been an artist. I have been singing since I was three years old and writing since I was twelve. Music and instruments have been a big part of my life and education for almost two decades. But somehow, it had never occurred to me that I could actually pursue art as my path forward. I began creating songs for the first time near the end of 2022, writing and recording the acoustic single “My Christmas,” which can still be streamed on YouTube. This new era of creation brought with it a seriousness for the arts that I had never taken into consideration before.

During all of this, I had also discovered the Marvel Cinematic Universe for the first time and truly fell in love with it. As I obsessed over characters and plots and storylines, I began to realize that I wanted to be a part of what I was seeing on screen. My dream of acting propelled me to apply to the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in New York City, and I could hardly believe it when I found out several months later in the beginning of 2023 that I had been accepted! I was going to New York! Well, I had no money and little support from those closest to me, but I had to find a way. This was going to be it! This was my first big step into making my dreams come true.

I worked harder than I had ever worked before that summer, juggling three jobs as well as freelance writing on the side to scrape together enough money to pay my tuition and also rent a place in New York, a feat in itself. I had no idea what I was doing, but I knew, finally, that this was what I wanted more than anything and that I would do anything to get it.

I will never forget the day that bus pulled into Manhattan with me on board, eyes glued to the skyscrapers and crowded streets of the city that never sleeps. In fact, I will never forget those next three months I spent in New York studying Method Acting at the prestigious LSTFI just off Union Square, commuting back and forth from Brooklyn, meeting people that would change my life forever, and falling in love with the most incredible, empowering city in the world. The introduction that Strasberg gave me to this incredible art form that is now my job is something I will forever be grateful for.

When I moved to New York, I was alone in a strange city 2,946 miles from home, across the continent and in a whole new country. It may well have been the bravest and also stupidest thing I have ever done. But I would never change anything about that decision, because it altered the trajectory of my life for good. I left New York with a fire burning in me, a fire that had first been ignited when I discovered my desire to act on screens for the rest of my life while watching Marvel, a fire that had been fanned into flames from the moment I arrived in Manhattan, and a fire that is the only reason I keep going every day, pushing towards my goals. Today, I am studying Theatre at York University in Toronto, hustling auditions, expanding my mind and soul through seeing films and reading scripts, shooting self-tapes, working on creative projects, and constantly striving to perfect the art form.

I owe that to the girl who, two years ago, made the brave decision to leave everything and everyone she knew behind to follow a dream.

Rachel , 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?

My name is Rachel, and I am an artist.

In every sense of the word, maybe.

Physically, I am an actor, singer, musician, and writer who dabbles in drawing and arts and crafts occasionally. Mentally, I think I was wired to create. I feel deeply and try to communicate that through my work. Some insist that emotions are dangerous or unstable and refuse to validate them, but I ride the ups and downs of mine and do my best to make out of them something new and beautiful and inspiring. It’s what any artist is constantly aspiring to do.

I guess I never really “got into” the arts because I have always felt integrally a part of it, but the switch that made the arts that much more important to me came when I began to actually create instead of just repeat art. It started as early as my short stories and chapter book I wrote when I was a kid and morphed into poetry, fan fiction, and later music and even screenwriting. This began to apply to my acting journey too as I learned about making unique choices for characters and bringing myself to the character I am playing – something I am still learning and working with today.

My creative work these days includes writing music and poetry whenever I can get the time outside of my day job and classes, workshopping and performing breakdowns for the auditions my agent sends me, and currently writing a short film that I will be acting in as well.

My skills of time management and productivity have greatly improved over the years, and I find myself balancing school, work, fitness, and time for creativity when I can manage it on a day-to-day basis. It can be challenging, but it’s a skill that I have carefully curated and continue to work closely with to stay as diligent and productive as possible.

When I look back at how far I’ve come, I am reminded that I can go even further. There is always more to create, more to dream, more to bring to the table. I am excited for my future, because I believe I have great things in store for the world – some of which I am not even aware of yet. And this is why every day, I continue to work towards bigger things.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Consistency and niche.

Those are the two words that completely changed the trajectory of my social media presence. I have been posting on Instagram and Tiktok for many years, but my audience seemed to remain the same small size and my following hardly ever increased. The occasional Tiktok video I posted would get decent views and likes, but overall it wasn’t doing too well. I started paying to boost my content on Tiktok and Instagram, but as you might imagine, those investments were a waste of my money and did not do too much to bolster interactions.

One day, I was talking to someone from a past university I studied at who also does content creation, and I asked her for advice. She told me that I needed to find a “niche” – a topic that I would constantly post about so that I could attract people who would follow me for that content. A while later, I was speaking to a friend who was also a successful content creator, and she clued me in on the fact that content creators posted a whole lot more than I did – at least once a day, and sometimes more. So I found my niche, which turned out to be a mix of queer, Marvel, and Billie Eilish content, and I began posting consistently. This has led to a steady amount of views with my videos going viral more often, something I never imagined was possible for me. Although my platforms are ever works-in-progress, as all platforms should be, my following has increased exponentially, and I’ve had interactions with some awesome individuals and organizations!

My moral? It’s never what you expect it to be, but there are always things you can do that will increase your chances of success. In some ways, social media influencing is a game of chance, but it also has its own set of rules to play by that make the game easier to win. Consistency and niche are the two main rules. But remember that anything can happen on social media – it’s a vast playground, and it can be really fun to navigate if you have the time and energy for it.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

I think that being an artist or creative comes with a lot of freedom that not a lot of people get to experience during their lifetime. Many people are stuck at jobs they hate or work that becomes extremely repetitive (something I am very familiar with), and life seems like a dim repeat of itself. Of course, we need to make money so that we can buy groceries for ourselves and our families, fill our cars with gas, and afford the home that we are living in. But this dull repetition makes us feel stuck and like there’s nowhere to go.

There are lots of simple ways to romanticize life, but none of them offer the release that creating art does. I think that’s because when you make art, you are finally able to communicate how you really feel about anything from the mundaneness of life to the pining you harbor for someone that escaped you. And not only can you communicate those feelings and experiences, but you can make out of them something completely new and beautiful and perhaps life-changing.

Creating art also offers a greater purpose than simply completing a daily routine or reaching goals you’ve set for yourself, although they are fulfilling in their own ways. It allows you to inspire and change lives, including your own, and to see deeper within yourself than most of us ever think to look. Suddenly, there is more to life than what your plans for the week are.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.forte-artists.com/artists-en/rachel-harrynarine
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rachelnicol_?igsh=cmc5eHBqcmZpeHJ2&utm_source=qr
• Other: Tiktok:
  

  @rachelnicol_

Image Credits

Peter Nguyen Photography
Sheena White Photography
Siwoo Kim (short film stills)
Zoe Wojtas (reel stills)