Meet Anissa Matlock

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

Anissa, 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?

I have to credit my resilience to the long line of strong women in my family before me. My mother, grandmother, great-grandmother. They all faced incredible hardship on top of your everyday highs and lows and pressed on toward better for themselves, and for their families. I feel I have that determined spirit of resilience in me as well, especially in trying times like our current societal circumstances.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I consider myself a multi-faceted storyteller and artist. Most who recognize me or my work would know me as a working actor in the TV and Film industry, most notably The Power (Amazon Prime Video), The Gifted and The Resident (FOX/Hulu), Greenland, and Fast Charlie (Amazon Prime Video), with recent credits including both seasons of Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches (AMC/Netflix), and the highly anticipated second season of Peacemaker (HBO/Max). I’m currently represented in the Southeast by J Pervis Talent Agency, out of Atlanta, GA.

I am also a screenwriter and independent film director, with recent works achieving a combined 17 Award Nominations, 5 wins, Finalist and Semi-Finalist classifications, and several honorable mentions in 2024. My creative future feels very bright. I have a lot planned with my creative partner and collaborators, and a full slate of scripts still in the works. I can’t wait!

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

I think one of the most invaluable skill is “patience.” I call it a skill because it definitely takes work to maintain at times! When I say “patience” I don’t mean sitting around and waiting for opportunities to fall into my lap. I think patience is a double-sided coin, paired with “preparation.” I actively pursue what I’m drawn to, and I’m patient in the outcome of that pursuit. I’ve been working in Film and TV for 12 years now. It’s a long journey that isn’t at all linear. I’ve been incredibly fortunate over the years, working with incredible talent like Auli’i Cravalho, James Gunn, Frank Grillo, Gerard Butler, and Pierce Brosnan to name only a few, but there’s still a lot of ground to cover to achieve all that I believe I can in this industry.

A quality I’m incredibly lucky to have is a sort of natural inclination toward picking up new skills, both for personal interest and for character study/performance. I think I’d refer to it as “adaptability.” I believe being open and willing to learn new things is a basic necessity. When you stop learning/adapting, you stop moving forward.
On set, the ability to adapt is paramount. Things don’t always go to plan and you have to be ready to shift. Once, I remember being on a set, standing on my mark awaiting “action” and being approach with an iPad. The scene I was about to perform had been entirely re-written just moments before. Those things happen. You take a breath, and you adapt.

The third important quality for me is connection, I think. There’s a lot to unpack wrapped up in that one word, but I’ll try to be concise, haha! Connecting with other people is just one aspect of what I’m talking about. An individual can be creative on their own and be perfectly happy that way, but there’s something about collaboration that can really elevate creative works in a unique way. In Film and Television specifically, the machine doesn’t function around one part alone. We’re all on the same team, working together to make something we hope will be great.
In a more intimate sense, I mean connecting with the inner workings of myself and how to utilize every aspect of my instrument, as an actor, or simply as a human being. Staying in touch with what makes me happy and what infuriates me is important. It’s all useful in the work I do, but it’s also useful in maintaining balance outside of the work.
Connection with community/society is another facet of that.
I know a lot of people don’t like to hear the political or socioeconomic opinions of people that work in Film and Television, but I’d like to gently remind people of that mindset that art is inherently political, and artists are also human beings that these things affect. So, we’re always saying something with our images, our performances, our narratives… our art IS our voice. It might not be a message you agree with all the time, but that’s part of being human. It’s hard to stay connected when it feels like there’s a severe lack of empathy in the world. Finding where it exists has become part of the journey that deeply informs my work.

Before we go, any advice you can share with people who are feeling overwhelmed?

The answer to this question has changed for me recently. Even now it doesn’t feel entirely natural to say yet, but I rest.
I think I’ve previously been in the habit of working myself ragged and allowing things to sort of bottle-neck; creative ideas, mental health, societal pressures, and/or other stressors. Sometimes I still fall into old habits and try to push through, prioritizing fewer things at a time, but the work is never AS good, and the stress persists. You can become overwhelmed for a number of reasons, but most often for me it’s because I’m exhausted on any number of levels, and that’s just not sustainable. We have to allow ourselves rest.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://demoreel.com/anissamatlock
• Instagram: @wretchedsoil, @anissamatlock
• Other: Blusky: @wretchedsoil

Image Credits

Chase Anderson, Daniel Cutts.