Today we’d like to introduce you to Lana Rae Jarvis.
Lana Rae, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I’ve been on the path to being an actor as far back as I can remember. That is what brought me to LA five years ago at the age of 19. I was raised on classic cinema and had studied theatre my whole life. Now I wanted a career in TV & film. I am still actively pursuing that goal, but my artistic interests have broadened and diversified since arriving in the city of angels.
I arrived in LA from the Bay Area with a broken heart and no clue how to make my acting career a reality. I was lucky enough to be cast in my first serious film role shortly after arriving here, Youth a sci-fi short film that ended up premiering at the Cannes film festival. This was one of my career high points and I am still very proud to have been a part of it, but it did not fix the insecurity and emotional turmoil I was experiencing. My first year here was a dark time, and in that darkness, I began to write songs. I wrote like breathing, lyrics pouring out of me. I filled notebooks with words and the voice memo app on my phone with melodies. I wrote for two years, no one but my bedroom walls hearing my songs before I realized that I wanted to be a musician as well as an actor. When I began to show my songs to professional musicians, they encouraged me to keep going. On my 22nd birthday, I rented a small theatre, invited all my friends, and played everything I’d ever written for them. The response was overwhelmingly positive, and I have been regularly playing out and pursuing music as actively as I pursue acting ever since.
As for acting, I found myself lovingly embraced by the LA Theatre community quite quickly. I’ve performed in many productions, my favorite the west coast premiere of Denim Doves at Sacred Fools Theatre Co. I’ve acted in several short films, I played a serial killer in the horror-comedy Hush Hush, which did quite well on the festival circuit. I voiced the lead character in an animated pilot that, sadly, never saw the light of day. I have gotten to work with many amazing artists, but not long after arriving I found myself frustrated by the lack of film work available to me. So, I began writing my own scripts. I’ve written or cowritten three shorts and directed a music video for one of my own songs, the Kitchen Floor. I currently have a web-series I cowrote, How to Fuck Up Family Dinner, and a short I cowrote, The Blame Game, waiting to go into preproduction. I’m also in the planning stages of recording my first EP. Before the new year, I signed with Bohemia Group Talent management and in March with Pantheon Talent for commercial representation. I am very excited that a team is starting to form to help me manifest my artistic pursuits.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
I was coming into my adulthood when I came to LA, and depression and anxiety were beginning to make themselves known as presences in my life. It took me a few years of continually crashing into the brick wall of my own self-loathing before I found my way into therapy, which changed my life for the better. I was also diagnosed with a health condition that was causing clinical depression. I will sing the praises of medication and therapy from every rooftop. My mental and emotional health is still a daily struggle that requires continual work, but I have the support and coping mechanisms.
Most importantly, I know that when I am at a low, it is not because I deserve to be there, it is just where I am for the moment. Songwriting is great comfort in those times. If I can name what I am feeling, put it into a song, then I feel more grounded and in control.
Los Angeles is a tough city to make your way in. Managing to keep momentum on my artistic career while working up to four other jobs at a time is exhausting. Finding balance and giving myself the rest I need is something I’m still working on.
My father died last year. He was a wonderful man and my best friend. He taught me to play guitar, filled my head with music and classic films, gave me books to read and talked to me about the history and the world. So much of who I am as an artist comes from him. Losing him broke my heart. I’ve been grieving for the last year and will be for a while yet. I think part of me will always grieve him. I know I all of me will always miss him. Trying to carry on through such devastating loss has been the greatest challenge I’ve ever faced. Sometimes I feel more alive than ever, then suddenly a wave of sadness hits me and it’s all I can do to crawl into bed. I’m writing a show about grief with a director in Las Vegas, based on the songs I wrote after my father’s death. My art has been a great comfort to me this past year, and now as I am facing the challenge of a global pandemic.
We’d love to hear more about your work.
My business is me, Lana Rae Jarvis. I am an actor, singer/songwriter, and writer. I aim to make art that makes people feel less alone in isolating experiences. Grief, mental health struggles, crippling self-doubt, the list goes on. I want to write and act in projects, comedy or drama, that normalize the awkward conversation. I am very proud of the songs and scripts I’ve written. I’ve been approached by strangers many times after shows and been told that one of my songs made them feel seen in a difficult experience. This is the highest compliment, and what I aim for with everything I create. I cannot say for sure what sets me apart. We are all unique. I think my desire for authenticity and the truth, even if it hurts, is unusually strong. I truly want to do good in the world with my creations, though I think this is a uniting goal for most artists. I never want to stop changing. I want to learn as much as I can from a situation, then move on to the next. I hope my art evolves as quickly as I do, and that I will always create from the desire to be of service.
What were you like growing up?
Growing up, it was obvious to everyone that I would be a performer. I danced down the street, made up songs, reenacted films for any adult who would stand still long enough to be performed at, and had an obsession with making books. My parents read to me every night and I grew up on the Chronicles of Narnia and the Phantom Tollbooth. I had a strong desire to live in a world with magic. I wanted to go live in Neverland with Peter Pan. I actually announced my departure to my parents. Luckily, I tried to take off from the ground and not from our 6th-floor apartment’s fire escape.
I would see a movie and spend the next week living in that world. I was fairly confident and outgoing as a small child. When puberty hit, that changed. Middle and High school were torture for me. I was still full of ideas and words, but I had no social graces and was incredibly sensitive. We moved often and I was the perpetual new kid in school. The older you get, the harder it is to be accepted into an established social circle. I was bullied and I took it hard. I was a weird drama kid with a rebellious streak that would not conform. Looking back, I wish I’d been more understanding of other viewpoints. I could come on a bit strong. That is the downside of being a teen, you are full of feelings but your capacity for empathy is still very underdeveloped. I was also very frustrated by school. Though I was a good student, academia bored me out of my mind. What I cared about were theatre and dance. I was always racing off after school to play rehearsals or a dance class. I’m grateful I spent my teen years in the Bay Area, where I was able to have first rate training in theatre and dance, primarily at the ACT and The Berkeley Repertory Theatre. As difficult as parts of my childhood were, I am proud of my younger self, for hanging on so tightly to my beliefs and fighting so hard for who I wanted to be, even if I didn’t always make things easy for myself.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://lanaraejarvis.bandcamp.com
- Email: lanaraejarvis@gmail.com
- Instagram: @lanaraejarvis
- Facebook: Lana Rae Jarvis & Lana Rae Jarvis Music
- Twitter: @lanaraejarvis
- Other: https://youtu.be/MlbQA2goMJk – My music video
Image Credit:
Daniel Sliwa (Hush Hush poster), Peter Berube (photo of me playing in the tropical print dress), Jessica Sherman Prince (Sacred Fools Photographer), Herb Rockone (Profile picture), and Robert Kazandjian (headshot).
Suggest a story: SDVoyager is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
