We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sarah Nicklin a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Sarah, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Do you think your parents have had a meaningful impact on you and your journey?

My parents never tried to force me into a specific profession or even suggest what I should do as a career. I grew up with the idea that if you work hard, you’ll get ahead and you can do anything you want, which ultimately is the American dream and also the ideals that I think they grew up with. I’ve always had the freedom to pursue an acting career and the support to do so even if it was sometimes begrudgingly.

My parents are not in the entertainment industry and are more “analytical” than creative, but I think being raised in this traditional mindset was very helpful for me in laying a strong foundation. I learned to have a strong work ethic, to keep going and keep trying even if you fail. They gave me discipline and structure, rewards when I achieved goals, and a healthy amount of disappointment to motivate me when I didn’t.

When I was maybe 8 or 9, my sister and I made a bet with my Dad that we could clean the entire family room (which was littered with toys) by Easter which was a week away, and if we did, he would give us each $100 – which is a lot of money for a kid! The closer and closer we got to our deadline the more impossible it seemed. My little sister gave us a day or two before the deadline thinking that there was no way we were going to meet the goal. But I kept going and tried to clean up the room as much as I could. I failed. I didn’t get the entire room clean by the deadline. But, because I didn’t give up, because I stuck to it and kept trying until the very end, my Dad still gave us the $100, but – rather than $100 each, we had to split it because we had only completed part of the goal, and since my sister had given up and I didn’t, I got $80 and she only got $20.

This taught me to always keep going, even when the odds are against you and the task seems impossible, that any progress you make towards you goal is still “reward-able” good progress.

I made another bet with my Dad when I was a freshman in high school that I would make the JV soccer team. He though I needed to improve my endurance and wanted me to join track, but I hated running. So the bet was if I didn’t make the team, then I would join track. I didn’t make the team, so I had to hold up my end of the bet, and I joined track where I worked on improving my endurance, which was just one portion of my soccer game.

What this taught me was that if you’re not achieving the goals that you want, to break it down and analyze each piece of what you’re trying to achieve and find ways to improve the areas individually. Don’t look at the goal as a whole, which is often big and seemingly insurmountable, break it down piece by piece into manageable chunks and then start to work on those. Basically, reverse engineer the process. You want to become a better soccer player? First thing to focus on is improving your endurance. You want to get more jobs as an actor, let’s break that down into manageable steps: take acting classes to work on the craft, focus on networking, focus on improving your unique skills, get better headshots… break the goal down into steps and then start chipping away at each step. Be disciplined and create your own “schedule” that moves you towards achieving your goals.

All of these were vital life lessons for working in the entertainment industry where you face failure and rejection everyday.

Sarah, 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 was born in Danbury CT, and bitten by the acting bug at an early age – or should I say “love bug”. I became obsessed with child star Jonathan Taylor Thomas at age 10 and it was the desire to meet him that spurred my interest in acting.

With the rationale of a pre-teen, I was convinced that by becoming an actress, I would cross paths with my love and that he would of course feel the same about me and we would be married, So I decided I needed to start working on this as soon as possible and signed up for the next school play “Bye Bye Birdie”.

I continued to pursue acting, taking theater classes and appearing in as many school plays as I could. By this time, my infatuation with “JTT” had been replaced with a deep love and obsession for the craft. I went to Emerson College to study acting.

While in Boston, I started working in the local indie film scene and quickly became the “go to” actress for indie films in the region. My leading role in the indie action-comedy Nun of That put me “on the map” and I was later dubbed as “the darling of indie horror”.

In 2011, I took a 3-month road trip across the country sleeping in my car (before Instagram or “van life” was cool), stopping to explore national parks along the way to Los Angeles. Recognition of the reputation I built while working in the New England indie film scene followed me and I continued to work on a bunch of indie horror films. I’ve now worked on over 100 films and TV shows in various genres.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

That there is no path, you have to find your own. I think with traditional jobs, there’s generally a pretty good path or steps that you need to take if you want to do that job – you go to school, you work as an intern, you get promoted and climb the ladder etc. and you can measure your success by your promotions or your salary, or your completion of a big project.

None of that applies to creative professions. There’s no path, there’s no structure for you to follow to try to make your dreams come true, and there are many different levels of “success”. A successful actor does not mean a celebrity. A successful actor is often still waiting tables or has another job to help pay the bills. I think the SAG strike has helped to bring a lot of attention to this – pull back the curtain and show how the vast majority of actors, even the ones you recognize, are not able to make a living just by acting. In general, there’s pressure as a creative to “fake it until you make it” – to outwardly show that you’re doing well and working and are successful, when in reality, you’re barely getting by.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

Affordable housing for creatives (or just society in general). Many other countries have artist grants or artist housing, where artists receive a stipend that helps them with living expenses. This would allow artists to be able to just focus on the art and not have to also be trying to scrape together other jobs to have income to support the basic necessities. Almost all of the artists I know, in various industries, have some other job that helps support them. Income is not consistent as an artist, but it’s also very difficult to be fully focused on your art when you have to split your time and energy with a traditional job just to keep the lights on.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2440492/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahnicklin/