Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Rivka Deray. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Rivka, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

My favorite current project is a film called Rescue. The plot is an enemies-to-friends story, which is a personal favorite. A nearly bankrupt horse rescuer has to work with a woman who is unprepared to adopt in order to keep the rescue afloat, and realizes the woman may have more in common with her rescues than she thought.

This film compelled me to become a producer in addition to acting (I’m doing both on this one). My co-producer, Kathy Kelly, introduced me to the world of horse rescue, which inspired the film. She showed me the brutal reality that surrendered horses face, and the plight of horse rescues who are desperate to help as much as they can, but suffer from lack of awareness and funding. I love horses and have always wanted to make a film about them, so this project was calling to me on so many levels.

Kathy’s initial idea was to make a documentary. I proposed that instead we collaborate on a narrative film, for a few reasons. 1. The audience for narrative films is much larger, and 2. I believe the market is currently oversaturated with angry “People bad! You should do/think like this” films. I figure that a movie that entertains the audience, and passively informs them without lecturing them would be a welcome change.

We’ve already got a script, incredible talent attached, a beautiful shooting location (an active horse rescue), and we’re currently funding for a short film. We’re going to use the short to fund the feature, like Whiplash did. This movie is gonna tug all the heartstrings, and make you laugh and cry. Best of all, while it has an important message, it never strays from Goal #1 of any good film: To entertain you.

Rivka, 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 kinda got into acting by accident. When I graduated college, I moved from my hometown to Jerusalem, where I knew almost no one. On a whim, I auditioned for a play in order to make friends. Being a complete unknown, I figured I had nothing to lose; the worst thing that could happen is I made a fool of myself in front of a bunch of strangers who would soon forget I existed. Crazily enough, (like we all dream about at five years old but never actually happens) I got cast as the lead! That play changed my life in so many ways. I made the friends I was looking to make–friends I still treasure to this day! And I discovered how much fun acting is (when it isn’t abjectly terrifying) and how powerful it can be. Shoutout to my first director, Devorah Jaffe, for taking a gamble on me, and to everyone who helped me along the process of that first play, and since! It’s why I’m here today.

I’d say the thing I’m most proud about is choosing to pursue acting full time. It was a difficult decision: most full-time actors I knew at the time were some of the most miserable people I knew, and in general I’m terrified of failure and the associated humiliation. It felt like the most public way to fall on my face was to try acting and fail at it. But as foolish as it felt to try, it felt even more foolish not to–I’d tried many different vocations in an attempt to scratch the creative itch, and none of them were scratching it particularly well; and as Jim Carrey’s father said brilliantly: “You can also fail at things you hate. So may as well do what you love.” So I have, and thank God it’s been an incredibly rewarding journey so far. Certainly not without its challenges, but no worthy journey is without them, and often, those challenges have been the rocket fuel that pushed me farther than I thought I could go.

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

I love the ability of art to lift people out of their current situations and transport them somewhere else. Whether it’s visual art, or music, or film, a good piece of art moves you. It takes you away from your current state of mind, your current issues, and either immerses you in something else, or makes you laugh out of your mood, or inspires you to make your life better than it is. Good art is universal: it doesn’t need long-winded explanations in order to mean something to anyone other than the artist.

As an actress, I love being empowered to move others–to lift someone’s mood; to humanize a hero and make someone realize that they too can be great; or just give someone the opportunity to put down their life’s burdens and be entertained for two hours. That’s what we storytellers do best. I was in a run of Neil Simon’s Rumors, a hilarious comedy that opened right after the last covid lockdown, and during intermission I overheard a member of the audience (who didn’t know I was listening) say, “I haven’t laughed that hard in two years!” It made me want to cry. That’s the power of what we can do when we’re at our best, and it inspires me daily to become the best.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

This is a bit of a hot take, but I think the best way society can support artists is to be picky. Know what you want, and vote for it with your dollars. A society that holds its artists to a standard gets the best art. As an artist, it can be easy to find ourselves railing against what the public wants to see or what producers want to fund. “Just let me express myself, no parameters!” But on the other hand, I think we’ve all encountered pieces of art in our lives that made us question “Did anyone ever tell this artist ‘No’?”

Restraint can be the biggest burr in our saddle, but I truly think that, within a healthy system, the limits imposed by what audiences actually want to see compels us to produce art that is even better than we would otherwise have created if we were given carte blanche to do whatever we feel like. It forces us to divorce ourselves from what only we can see, and find a way to share that vision or experience in a way that can also move others.

I like to say: Bad artists create what they want. Working artists create what audiences want. Great artists show audiences what they didn’t know they wanted.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://rivkaderay.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rivkaderay
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheRivkaDeray
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rivka-deray-actress/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@rivkaderay
• Other: https://linktr.ee/rivkaderay
  https://resumes.actorsaccess.com/rivkaderay

Image Credits

GC Barger (photo in the red 18th Century Dress)
Ita Arbit Photography (photo in the grey dress with the woman in red and white standing behind me)