We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Amalia Santa Maria a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Amalia , so excited to talk about all sorts of important topics with you today. The first one we want to jump into is about being the only one in the room – for some that’s being the only person of color or the only non-native English speaker or the only non-MBA, etc Can you talk to us about how you have managed to be successful even when you were the only one in the room that looked like you?
This question hits a nerve, especially because I’m in the film industry, so the way everything looks is even more significant than in other industries. The thing about the entertainment industry is it likes everything to fit in a box very neatly, and anything that doesn’t fit perfectly into that box’s stereotype gets dismissed immediately. I’m a light-skinned Latina actress and have always been told I look either German, British, or Russian. Even in my native country, Colombia, I would always get called in to play foreigners. I think in my entire career, I’ve only played one Colombian character. What drives me up the wall is the entertainment industry often makes a character’s ethnic background their entire personality, which I find is so limiting to storytelling and makes the possibility of world building that much smaller.
For a while, the way I learned to succeed in the industry was to go with the flow and get cast as Anglo-Saxon characters almost exclusively. More recently I’ve found having conversations around type-casting, especially discussions about going beyond the “spicy Latina” trope, very helpful. I feel like the industry is slowly starting to move in that direction, which is great because these conversations are happening. Latina actresses like Jenna Ortega, Anya Taylor-Joy, and others are out there changing the game and helping broaden the definition and possibilities of what roles Latina actors can play.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
I’m Amalia Santa Maria, an actor/writer/director working with international film & TV markets both in front and behind the camera. My work fuses delicately potent visuals with gritty storylines that catch people off guard. When I’m not creating films that inspire underrepresented individuals to live life on their own terms, you can find me dancing in the woods in the form of a pre-raphaelite changeling.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
In retrospect, I feel like the skills/qualities that have been most helpful are resilience, thinking outside the box, and a profound unshakeable love for what I do. I hear friends of friends sometimes say they’re going to give acting a try for a while, and I’m like “Oh no honey, that’s not the way it works.” Being in film and tv is a marathon, not a race, and you have to love it so much that you’ll keep going even when there are times that it feels like nothing will never happen again.
As to advice, what’s given me the biggest learning curve is being on set. Education is great, don’t get me wrong, and it gives you the confidence to be centered on set when everything turns insane (which it usually does). But experience to me has been what’s really taught me the most. Even if it’s a student project or your own, getting on a real set is what I find most valuable.
One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
Finding the right team to collaborate is part of the art itself. When you find people you are so aligned with the project’s vision that you almost communicate telepathically, that’s when you know the project is going to be gold.
Right now, I’m mainly looking for producers to collaborate on my upcoming projects. Would love to connect with producers interested in films about anti-heroines that take feminine visuals to new depths.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.santamariaamalia.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amaliasantamaria/
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@amalia.santamaria
Image Credits
Paula Crichton
