We recently connected with Bonnie Root and have shared our conversation below.
Bonnie , thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
Resiliency is a beautiful human quality. I think the strength of our resiliency is related to a sense of purpose, our sense of hope, and our connection to other humans. Mine I believe is directly linked to artistic expression. As a child I felt such a strong connection to acting and music and utilized those things as a means to process difficult and BIG emotions. The pursuit of art also taught me to see beauty in painful things, difficult things and how incredible it can be to hear or experience someone else’s struggles and feelings and become connected to them and learn from them. When I am experiencing life through art, it all has meaning, even the seemingly meaningless things can feel sacred and poetic, and that idea, that challenge, strife, and loss can be alchemized, synthesized into something extraordinary that transcends our differences and connects us as humans will always give me strength to get back up and see what life has in store next. Over the course of my life, I have won and lost many times over in career, relationships etc.., sometimes what feels like a losing streak has turned out to be an opportunity to humbly reflect and broaden my perspectives. Whatever the struggle, I try like hell, when I’m ready and the proper grieving period has been honored, to pick up the pieces and see what new possibilities await.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I am an actor, producer, screenwriter, and director. I love collaborating with other filmmakers and artists in many different capacities. I love to facilitate and advocate for fresh voices, especially those telling stories that highlight women’s perspectives and experiences with a willingness to take on difficult and complex issues and themes. I have several feature films in development and am working with a few different teams and solo auteurs. I have an exciting new film that I both star in and produced, written, directed and produced by one of my partners Lila McLaughlin, which is in post production now. This feature is a female helmed psychological thriller/horror that explores themes of generational trauma and mental health, it was featured two weeks ago as an exclusive in Deadline Hollywood and also stars Emily Rios (Breaking Bad, Snowfall, If Beale Street Could Talk) and Louis Ferriera.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
The three most important areas of knowledge and/or qualities for me as an actor and filmmaker would be, 1) Training and dedication to craft. 2) Humility and willingness to fail and fail and fall down and get back up. 3) Learning to communicate effectively: remain calm, seek resolution, identify issues early on and address them respectfully. Something to add on specifically in regard to successful communication in creative fields is making sure you share the same taste, artistic references and goals before launching into a collab.
Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?
The Four Agreements!
Contact Info:
- Instagram: Bonnie Root
- Facebook: Bonnie Root
- Other: https://deadline.com/2024/04/dont-let-them-out-emily-rios-louis-ferreira-bonnie-root-topline-horror-feature-1235891890/
Image Credits
Rebecca Sanabria
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