Meet Marlee Carpenter

We recently connected with Marlee Carpenter and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Marlee, 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?
There was a time in my life when I looked like your stereotypical basic white girl. Long blonde hair. Cutsie outfits. I even spoke in a higher pitch. Because I was trying to fit in. In elementary school I got bullied for being different quite a lot. This continued through my later schooling as well, but i changed everything about myself to fit the mold that I thought people wanted me to be in. Then I started pursuing acting. I kept getting cast as these bimbos and ditsy blondes. Which were so much fun to play but those types of roles don’t last. You get older, you lose your looks. You no longer are seen as the femme fatale. So, I chopped my hair off. I forced people to see me as something different and I began getting different roles. This didn’t last though. I went back to the cutsie stuff and the long hair and once again found myself struggling to know who I was as a person. I wanted to be edgy. I wanted to have shaved sides. Finally, in 2021, I got up the courage to chop my hair off again and start living my true self. This also came at a time where I was realizing I was queer and that scared me because I was brought up in the church. I have a father for a pastor who does not support the LGBTQ community. At this point though I had found a group of people that encouraged me on the regular to live my truth. This was amazing! I felt supported even though I didn’t get that support at home.

Then another problem came up. The agency I was signed with stopped sending me auditions after I chopped my hair off. I had pigeon-holed myself I thought and I became very self-conscious about my appearance even though I felt so free finally. Then I found Heyman Talent Agency. They have sent me more auditions in the month I’ve been signed with them than my other agency had in 2 years combined! I was once again realizing that If I continued to live my truth, the right people would find me. I’ve held onto this. I have no doubt that I could have booked more with my first agency had they believed in me. Heyman believes in me and I’ve already booked several spots through them. So again I’ll say, live your truth, and the right people will find you. You have to be confident in that.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
First and foremost I will say, I wear a lot of hats! I am an actor, I am a performer, I am a musician, a writer, and a producer. This year alone I have booked a record number of acting gigs for myself, as well as a record number of band gig for my 2 bands I’m involved with. I am the lead singer of 2 cover bands. One is a rock band called Hard Candy and the other is an acoustic band called The Forgotten. We play all over Ohio! I also a Co-Creative Producer for my Production Company Bucketnaut Productions with 2 of my best friends Tyler Savino and Thomas Moeger. We just launched our own streaming site for all our content called Bucketnaut.TV!

Then to add to my busy life, I am currently recording my first album that I wrote called ‘Closure’! I just dropped the first single ‘All A Dream’ on August 31st and the music video is dropping on September 8th. I spent three years writing the songs for this album. All surrounding a very painful time in my life, so making the album has been incredibly cathartic for me. I have an amazing producer named Brennan Willis at The Ohio Recording Company that has been working on it with me and I truly could not ask for a better producer.

Then, just because acting and performing come in seasons, I also work as a shipping manager 5 days a week at a holistic health clinic in Michigan. I only work 20-30 hours a week for them, but they always give me time off to go do gigs. For instance, I’m leaving for a month next week to go film a feature film out in Indiana and the team at the center have been nothing but supportive and excited!

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?
My biggest asset is that I’m outgoing. I believe the world is meant to have introverts and extroverts and I would personally call myself and “introverted-extrovert”. Because I love to socialize but I need time to recover. But being in the industry I’m in, you have to be outgoing. You have to be willing to talk yourself up and TELL PEOPLE about your art! I’m not afraid to tell someone to look up my song, or follow me on instagram. I love networking! I paid my way to New York Fashion Week this year just so I could network with industry professionals. I introduced myself to models, photographers, producers, casting agents, anyone I could find and I would always pull my instagram up and show them my work. This usually got a follow back. I have maintained contact with several of the people I met and we have plans to work together.

Secondly, I’d say Learning as much as I could about my industry has helped me. With music, I knew how to play the saxophone, but its hard to write music with a sax. So, I taught myself how to play the guitar and play the piano. I bought a high end recording mic, a DAW, and professional mixing software. I’m not great at mixing but I taught myself enough that when it was time to go in the studio, I knew how to explain what it was I wanted out of the mix. What sort of instruments, how I wanted the vocals, the different timber I was looking. I could have a bigger role in the final product because I knew what I was talking about after studying it.

Thirdly, I have very good memorization skills. It took me a loonngggg time to figure out the best way for me to memorize lines. I started googling how other actors did it and tried several different methods. I now can memorize entire short films in a few days. And recently I memorized 25 scenes for a feature in 3 days. This took trial and error and a lot of practice. Now I don’t freak out when I book a last minute role and I only have a week to memorize the script. This has been an incredibly valuable skill to have.

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?
I LOVE COLLABORATIONS! It is probably my favorite part of the acting and music industry, I used to try to do everything myself, but then I started to notice that sometimes, other people have better ideas than you, which makes for a better product! For my music video, I gave a rough idea of how I wanted it and then let my fellow producers brainstorm and bring me back their ideas. We ended up combining several aspects of several ideas and developed the concept for the music video and it turned out great! When I write a script, I always send it to several other people for feedback. Because my writing can be clunky sometimes, and I’m by no means a professional writer, so getting feedback is incredibly important to me.

My production company, Bucketnaut Productions is ALWAYS looking for new collaborators! So if you ever want to be involved with a film email [email protected].

And If you want to get involved with my projects you can follow me on instagram @marcarpenter. You can also visit my website marleecarpenterofficial.com to see what I have coming up!

Contact Info:

Image Credits
Grant Beachy, Andy Balas, Phillip Coveney

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