“Marci, what are we doing with our lives?”
“L–living the dream?”
We could very well have asked each other that same question one year ago. The life of a 20-something struggling actor in LA is…well, not glamorous. We were working our catering and coffee-shop day jobs, waking up at 4am to make cappuccinos or staying up until 2am to serve appetizers, to pay our bills so that we’d have the luxury of being able to audition. The only problem was, the roles we were auditioning for—the ones we were working our day jobs in order to get—weren’t really the ones we wanted to play. Don’t get us wrong, we love a good “girl-next-door,” but after a while you start to itch for something a bit more challenging, a bit more fun, a bit more off-the-wall.
Both of us love comedy, but it seemed that whenever we’d go out for roles in comedies our characters weren’t ever funny. They were the girlfriends or the best-friends, the “straight-man”—always setting up the joke, but never getting to deliver it. We wanted to play characters that were way outside the box. We wanted to create a show centered around two female characters who were as over-the-top and ridiculous as possible. Dwight Schrute to the 10th degree.
British comedies like Absolutely Fabulous and Greenwing inspired us with their incredible plotlines and absurd tangents, while It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia proved that as long as the concept and writing were strong, a show could have legs. We decided to challenge ourselves: could we make a show about two girls in Los Angeles while avoiding the usual cliché storylines? Could we incorporate elements of absurdism and still ask an audience to care about the characters? Above all, we wanted the show to reflect our sense of humor; that show became our web series, We Are with the Band.
So many actors spend their entire careers waiting for the phone to ring, hoping that they might be a part of something they believe in. We decided to just go for it. It was scary and stressful, and there was a steep learning curve, but the professional and personal rewards have been all the more meaningful. After almost a year of working on We Are with the Band, we have a show that we’re proud of, and that reflects our taste.
We may still be making coffee and serving appetizers, but at least we’re doing it in order to be able to create and play substantial, fun, and daring characters. In our minds, that opportunity is living the dream.
Heleya de Barros & Vivian Kerr
Co-Creators, We are With the Band
Kudos to Heleya and Vivian for going out and making it happen.
Thanks so much Tina!