FEB. 2018 16 TESSA ALBERTSON
on changing the balance in Hollywood, post-Times Up
04 EDEN BROLIN
18 BABY ARIEL
34 CHLOE LUKASIAK
on the second season of beyond + her upcoming films
on turning her music.ly fame into a professional career
on conquering each aspect of her career
06 KALIE SHORR
22 JACE NORMAN
44 ALEX AIONO
on finding her confidence + the girl power in nashville
on growing up on screen + his newest gig as a ceo
on living in the moment + learning to appreciate success
10 TREVOR JACKSON
28 AMBER STEVENS WEST
50 MELISSA BOLONA
on grown-ish + his new album, rough drafts
on the realities of being an actress + her latest project, ghosted
on her upcoming projects + how she uses her marketing degree
32 SAVANNAH KEYES
on her ununsual route to nashville + what’s next for her CATHERINE POWELL
publisher, editor, photographer, designer, writer
CARLY BUSH
AUTUMN HALLE
MARISSA JOHNSON
SHELBY CHARGIN
IAN HAYS
NICOLE MOOREFIELD
ELIZABETH FORREST
RACHEL HILL
OLIVIA SINGH
writer writer writer
writer writer writer
writer writer writer
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BROLIN
Words by MARISSA JOHNSONE Photos by CATHERINE POWELL Hair by STEVEN MASON Make-Up by BLONDIE
EDEN
With a massive role in Freeform’s Beyond and a new list of exciting projects, Eden Brolin has definitely found her way into the spotlight. Though she was born in New York City, Eden moved around several times as a child and mostly found herself living on California’s coast, with a move to Los Angeles when she was 11-years-old. Throughout middle and high school, Eden found a love for acting in her school’s theater programs and eventually picked up an agent at age 16. Despite having an agent, she ended up spending most of the end of her high school theater career off stage, getting involved on the crew side and learning about lighting, sound, and sets. After high school, she moved to New York City where she attended The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre where she focused on school and put auditioning on the back burner. Because of the school’s rule against booking jobs and her intense focus on her studies, she ended up not booking her first job for almost four years. For most, the lack of bookings would be discouraging, but Eden remained constant in her passion for acting and finished her last few years of school. “I wasn’t booking anything but 70% of my energy was going to school. [Also], I knew it took work and timea lot of it has to do with timing and who’s on the radar. I knew that it was a process,” Eden says. After a move back to Los Angeles and almost two years of auditioning while making ends meet as a waitress, Eden booked her first television role on Freeform’s Beyond as Charlie, a character with a unique power that allows her to use math to predict future events, or, as Eden puts it simply, “I’m good at math.” She said of the
audition process, “I’m an awful auditioner, but this was one of the few times that I went into the audition room knowing that I had to have this [script] memorized, because it was all numbers stuff in that first episode, its all numbers and algorithms,” she recalls. During filming of the first season, Eden most fondly remembers working with the show’s star, Burkely Duffield, saying “I got to work with Burkely a lot, which was really nice. I think I worked mostly with Burkely, it’s nice to have a buddy on set – I wasn’t alone as much”. Of her time on Season 1, she says that getting to experience the world of multiple directors, writers, and crews was an important experience because she got the opportunity to see how different people work and how it comes together for the continuity of the show and the characters, something she had never experienced before. Eden says that her time on set for the first season was a “weird and lonely time” because she spent a majority of her time alone, or was only on set for a short period of time. “I would go into a manic state when I got on set” she admits. Due to of her lack of time on set, she would have to try to catch up with and meet everyone in the time that she had. However, this time around for the second season there were several new cast members to interact with, her favorites being Keenan Tracey and Peter Kelamis. In Beyond’s Season 2 opener, we see Charlie in a yoga studio where she is pretending to be pregnant in order to get into a class to meet with Robin (Aliyah O’Brien) so she can gain access to her house by finding out dates that translate into the codes she needs. Charlie is also
teaming up with Yellow Jacket (Peter Kelamis) this season in order to find Arthur (Alex Diakun), which will be her main objective throughout the season. A key difference between the first and second season is the lack of “instant gratification” for Season 2. The first season was immediately available to watch in its entirety on the Freeform app, whereas Season 2 will be released more traditionally with one episode per week. “It’s kind of scary because the thing about people being able to binge it was you got those instant fans and instant viewers and it’s kind of scary thinking about people waiting knowing that there’s so much content out there that is ‘binge-able’ these days” Eden says. But is also exciting because everyone will experience it together, with the potential for releasing spoilers online lessened. In addition to Beyond, Eden worked on two movies in 2017 which she anticipates being released this year. Back Fork is about the opioid epidemic in West Virginia, which Eden found especially rewarding to work on. “It’s nice to do something that’s so rooted in real life,” she says, “It was a beautiful thing to work on because I went out there a little afraid that people were going to respond with some resistance about ‘Hollywood’ coming in and glamorizing their [situation] but it was so nice to see people coming up to the director and saying, ‘I just lost a friend from this, thank you for getting this story out.’” She also stars in King Fish alongside Molly Ringwald and Kevin Corrigan, a Goonies-esque film that follows a group of kids trying to find treasure off the coast of Montauk, which will also be out later this year. NKD NKDMAG.COM
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kalie shorr Words & Photos by CATHERINE POWELL
It may seem presumptuous to say a relatively new artist is “going back to their roots”, but for Kalie Shorr, the statement couldn’t be more true. In the last two years since she released “Fight Like a Girl”, Kalie’s life has been on fast forward. With nearly 2 million streams on Spotify, the song became a key to unlocking a plethora of doors - from securing a spot in Teen Vogue’s Music Issue to being named one of CMT’s Next Women of Country. And while her anthemic debut was a perfect indicator of Kalie’s overall message, her latest EP Awake is exactly what she’s been hoping to accomplish sonically since she moved to Nashville. Over prickly pear margaritas and queso dip, Kalie tells me how Awake - which fuses country roots with her unwavering love for pop-punk - came to be. “It’s so much more me than anything I’ve ever done,” Kalie admits. Kalie has been in the room with countless, talented songwriters and producers in Nashville, but struggled to find people who were familiar with the artists she grew up on. “I’d be like, ‘Can we get a Jack’s Mannequin piano sound on here?’ and they’d be like, ‘I don’t know who that is’,” she recalls. She partnered with producer Skip Black, who had
experience working on both country and rock records, and understood Kalie’s vision. While finding a producer who understood her references to 2008’s Warped Tour line up was important, learning to be confident in the studio is what truly made a difference for Kalie. While some of her confidence comes from spending nearly half a decade in Nashville honing her craft, the network of women she has around her these days has been a crucial part of Kalie’s development as an artist. As a founding member of the Song Suffragettes, a weekly, all-female showcase in Nashville, Kalie is no stranger to the power of girls supporting girls. “Being at the forefront of something like that, it makes me really careful of every decision I make because I’m like, ‘How does this reflect girl power?’” she says, “It’s kind of like this angel on my shoulder.” In recent months, the group has come together on two joint efforts: a cover of Keith Urban’s “Female” and an original song Kalie penned titled “Times Up”, which was inspired by the Golden Globes. In addition to her Suffragettes family, Kalie has found an invaluable support system in the young women of country music. After a girl’s night at chart-top-
per Kelsea Ballerini’s home last fall, Kalie and the others formed a network (and a group chat) to support, encourage and cheer on each other. From artists like Cassadee Pope and Lauren Alaina who have been through the trenches of the music industry, to newcomers like Bailey Bryan and Hannah Ellis, there is no shortage of girls for Kalie to reach out to when she needs someone to understand what she’s going through. ”It’s such a great resource to have,” she says of the 20-girl group chat, “It’s super cool. They’re like the nice girls in high school that I never found.” In a few short weeks, Kalie will do what her friends (and Girls Room group chat members) Lindsay Ell and Maggie Rose did before her: take the stage as the opening act on CMT’s Next Women of Country Tour (featuring Sara Evans and RaeLynn), which kicks off in New York City on Feb. 12. As an attendee of the CMT Next Women of Country brunch for four years, Kalie was honored to be chosen for the Class of 2018. Leslie Fram the SVP of Music Strategy at CMT, surprised Kalie with news over breakfast one morning and was able to keep her cool, but when she found out about the tour (five days before the public did), she had a full meltdown. NKDMAG.COM
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trevor jackson Words & Photos by CATHERINE POWELL
tessa albertson Words by IAN HAYS Photos by CATHERINE POWELL
Tessa Rose Albertson is New York, born and raised - Upper West Side, to be exact. She’s a Leo and extrovert meant to be in the spotlight. At 9 she went away to camp, auditioned for and landed the lead in the camp musical, and turned that spark into a career. When camp was over, she went back home and her mom signed her up for acting classes. Leaving no stone unturned, Tessa also took dance classes at 16
Broadway Dance Center. Here, she was amongst peers already performing on Broadway. They informed her of an open call that would help legitimize her career. Simultaneously, Tessa was work shopping with acting coach, Diane Harden. A revered teacher amongst her thespian peers, Diane saw Tessa’s potential and made her endorsement known. “I went in for the call back and it was like, badda-bing, badda-
boom!” Tessa exclaims. At 12 she played teenage Fiona in Shrek: The Musical on Broadway. Even with this accomplishment, Tessa was still in middle school; drama central. But her older cast mates reassured her that any drama was nothing to fret in the grand scheme of things. “I think that’s why I love acting so much. When your performing you’re there, you’re in the moment. Everything else just
melts away,” she says. Through her teen years she attended Dalton, a ‘progressive’ school designed around children pursuing careers in acting, singing, modeling, the whole gambit. Hard work pays off and Tessa was accepted into Princeton. Education was about feeding her curiosity, not a high SAT score, but this was Princeton, so she chose to attend and was able to find that balance of schooling and acting. This also allowed her to get out of the city; it gave her a chance to miss what she thought was always there while learning to appreciate new places. She took a gap year before attending (now a sophomore) to narrow her focus. Her sights are on directing. “With the Times Up movement, I realized now is the time for me to really pursue my dream of directing. There are a lot of women who are actors, but there were no female directors nominated at the Golden Globes this year,” she says, “I love acting, but it would be great if I could be part of the change of not every set I work on being male dominated.” Perfectly aligned with her goals of bridging the gap, in 2017, Tessa starred in the drama, Blame, which was written and directed by her peer, Quinn Shephard. For Tessa, the experience was amazing. “The key was treat her like this wasn’t a student film. She had an amazing script, a professional cinematographer. I knew this was going to be a quality film. The key was to give her that authority,” Tessa reflects on the experience. This stemmed from Tessa seeing how self-aware
Blame was. It tackled heavy subject matter with student-teacher relationships. It was deliberate in its actions and message which encapsulates what Tessa is looking for in a performance. For the past four years, she has been playing Caitlin Miller, daughter of Liza on the critically acclaimed TV series, Younger. The show is getting ready to shoot its fifth season and Tessa couldn’t be happier. With school work and side projects, Younger has been her bedrock. It’s a show that focuses on the female experience and Tessa has been lucky enough to grow up on set. “It’s a blessing. I remember the first table read and being so excited to be surrounded by these strong, beautiful, talented women. I couldn’t believe I was playing Sutton’s [Foster] daughter. And Hilary Duff has been working forever and she is so grounded, so down to earth. She’s a really good listener and watching her work is amazing, especially when she is getting directions.” This goes beyond the show. Her co-star Debi Mazar shares a birthday with her, making them “astrological twins”. She jokes with Tessa calling her a “city kid” while Debi calls herself a “city rat”. The door is always open for Tessa and she knows she can open up to her co-stars about anything. There is a comradery amongst the cast that Tessa knows needs to be the norm, not the special exception. She is also currently rehearsing for a new play called The Low Road by Pulitzer Prize winner, Bruce Norris. The play is a take on the birth of Capitalism in
America, narrated by Adam Smith’s “invisible hand”, focusing on the points in history the high road should have been taken. While Younger has been her longest run to date, Tessa see’s the stage as the most comfortable place to act. With film, scenes are often out of order and that natural progression of character relationships can be jilted. While your actions can be more nuanced, it’s still about the camera. “Theater will always be first because it’s just you and the audience. You get to be just very present.” Being an actor, most everything happens in the moment. You have to be ready to jump on command and re-learn how to relax between projects. The long term agenda for Tessa is to graduate college. But, this summer, she is looking to shoot a film. She has a script she is working on inspired by the Times Up movement. It focuses on trying to dismantle the current process and bringing the power back into the hands of the creatives, especially of those underrepresented like women. It’s a way of tackling “the powers that be”. The old guard is dying and its artists like Tessa taking the reigns as the new generation comes into power. She has not only experienced the issues of the industry first hand, she is working with people actively working to improve it. Tessa Albertson is a performer who knows her body of work is just one piece of the puzzle. Having a successful career means lifting up others, as well. And Tessa is just getting started. NKD NKDMAG.COM
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BABY ARIEL Words by ELIZABETH FORREST Photos by CATHERINE POWELL
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Ariel Martin, known as “Baby Ariel” to generation Z and pop culture consumers, has been interested in music and dancing since she was young(er). A few years ago, she made it big and conquered the social media scene, taking the internet by storm. At only 17, this emerging star has accomplished an astonishing amount before she can even vote. With features in prestigious outlets such as 60 Minutes, Billboard, TIME and Forbes, Ariel has ensured that her presence in the new age of social media is cemented in place. Ariel’s journey began two years ago on the popular social media app, musical.ly. On the application, users can upload short videos of themselves lip-syncing and share them with their followers. “I started posting on musical.ly just for fun, but over time it developed into something greater,” she explains. Her following grew quickly and exponentially. And because she found success on musical.ly, she expanded her online presence to weekly YouTube video uploads and frequent posts on Instagram and Snapchat. She thought that posting online would be a perfect way to begin her real music career because of her online success. Ariel released her first single, “Aww”, on December 1st. With lyrics like “everyone wants somebody who looks at them like that” and “you’re so freaking cute,” the song is a fun and playful beginning. Though it was her first single, the transition from amateur to professional content
hasn’t been a difficult one for her. She’s been doing music her whole life, so it wasn’t too drastic of a change. She was scared to put out the music because it was going to be shared with more than just her core fanbase, but she was mostly excited to put it out since she has been wanting to share it for so long. “Now that I actually can, it’s just the start of a new layer,” she says. The song’s sound is pure pop and matches exactly how Ariel envisions her future music. “What I like about my music and about this song is that even though I would consider it pop, it has a cool twist, edge or quirkiness about it,” she explains. Ariel’s musical inspirations are Sza and Julia Michaels; she loves their style and the way they write their own music. That, combined with her first single, have set the foundation for Ariel’s professional sound. Ariel had a huge part in “Aww” and the video’s concept. It took two days to shoot the video and featured Ariel’s friends, both old and new, including her best friend Ari and popular makeup legend Patrick Starrr. “Aww” is a video with colorful backgrounds and a plethora of pink, complemented by trampoline bits, cute animals and spray paint. “All my friends came and we honestly just had fun the whole day. We were throwing cheese balls and jumping on the trampolines,” Ariel remembers. In all, shooting the video was just as fun as the finished product looks. The video was a huge success and attracted millions of views
within the first week. Ariel told herself that she wasn’t going to have any expectations before it was released because her only goal was for her followers to love it. “So far, they have been showing an amazing reaction,” Ariel says. “They’re so nice and showing so much support.” With over 30 million followers across all social media platforms, she’s managed to impress a huge fanbase. Ariel is relieved her fans have supported her in this new step in her journey and that she’s gained some new fans along the way. Her supporters are important to her. Because of her beginnings on social media, she’s been given the opportunity to get to know her fans more intimately than many artists do. In 2016, she headlined Digitour and was able to connect with fans more personally than she ever could behind the screen. “It was a month long tour and we traveled all across the United States. A lot of my friends were on the tour with me,” Ariel explains. Not many teenagers can say they’ve explored the country with their friends; Ariel remembers it as a super fun experience. Because of how much time she was able to spend with fans during tour, she had a number of great experiences while getting to know them. “Most of my favorite fan meetings are when it’s not just like ‘Oh, hi, how are you’ and we take a picture and that’s it,” Ariel explains. Digitour allowed her to have dinner with fans and meet and talk with them outside of venues. It went beyond the normal meet and NKDMAG.COM
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jace norman Words by CARLY BUSH Photos by CATHERINE POWELL
amber stevens west
Words by NICOLE MOOREFIELD Photos by CATHERINE POWELL Glam by AMBER ROSE
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Born and raised in Los Angeles, Amber Stevens West was no stranger to the entertainment industry growing up. From a “showbiz kind of family,” Amber’s parents encouraged her to pursue a career in the arts. “I think they saw at a young age that I was fit for this,” she says. Amber was introduced to music at a young age. As a teenager, she
encouraged her to try acting and she fell in love with the craft. “It’s all just a wave that I kept riding and it hasn’t crashed yet,” she remarks. When she got her first series regular job on Freeform’s Greek, Amber dropped out of college to join the cast. “All of a sudden I was a full-time actor,” Amber recalls. Like all good things, Amber’s time
doing,” she poses. During the lulls, Amber has learned to live frugally. “I just try to stay focused and save my money,” she laughs. “This is an industry where you’re an independent contractor. You never know where your next job is coming from.” Landing Ghosted was the crest of Amber’s wave. “Ghosted kind
“This is an industry where you’re an independent contractor. You never know where your next job is coming from.” wrote and recorded her own music, but soon realized the lifestyle of a pop artist wasn’t for her. “It’s a very specific personality that can handle life on tour and being very vulnerable,” she explains. Instead, Amber joined a modeling agency and began booking commercials, where she met the agent who is her manager today. He
on Greek came to an end after four years, and transitioning back into the world of networking and auditions was intimidating. “You’re begging for jobs all day long,” Amber shares, “And I had to jump right into that.” Her journey has been bumpy, “but I think everyone feels that in their career no matter what they’re
of happened serendipitously,” she remarks. An hour after learning her current project, The Carmichael Show, had been canceled, Amber received a phone call. Ghosted was reshooting its pilot with a new character, and they wanted her to test for the role. “I read with Adam Scott and then a couple days later found out that I got the job. It was a
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savannah keyes Words by AUTUMN HALLE Photos by CATHERINE POWELL
Savannah Keyes wants the world to know who she is in three minutes or less. The Nashville transplant is no stranger to the hard work it takes to make a name for yourself. Born near the sunny beaches of San Diego, Savannah spent much of her 32
youth watching her mother take on the responsibilities of a mother and a father, after her biological father took off when she was four months old. Her mom did everything she could to carve out a life for the two of them, working three jobs and shuffling between rundown apart-
ments and her grandparents place, surviving on food stamps and hard work. “You know those really pivotal moments that are ingrained in you? There’s this memory I have of us on the side of the freeway because our car was impounded and towed,”
Savannah reflects. “It was just my mom and I, I was in a car seat, and she didn’t have a cell phone. We were sitting there for hours after walking to find a payphone to call my grandparents. It was one of those moments where I realized how hard my mom worked to make things happen.” The twosome became a foursome when her mother got married and they moved out to Utah — a move that gave Savannah a father and brother, and a positive new beginning. “My dad is such an amazing person. I honestly don’t think I’d be here in Nashville without him,” Savannah says. “If I wanted guitar lessons he’d make it happen. If I needed to fly out to Nashville for two weeks to record music, he was 100% on board.” At just 7-years-old she was writing melodies and lyrics in her bedroom, running down to the local Sweet and Sassy to perform and record them to an empty store. At 13, she bought a karaoke machine and set to work finding gigs across Utah, sometimes working for nothing but a slice of pizza and a soda. Because her extended family was still in California, Savannah would post videos of her singing to YouTube and send the links to her grandparents. She never expected anyone – let alone anyone famous – to take notice. “I posted a video of me singing a cover of Miranda Lambert’s ‘More Like Her’ to the internet. I thought it was just my grandparents watching, but then I got a phone call from The Ellen Show,” Savannah beams. “They asked me to send more videos of me singing and I rushed home to send off my Dixie
Chicks covers.” Months went by and there was no word from the show, but then she got a surprise call while sightseeing on a double decker bus in Manhattan. It was a call that would change everything for the pre-teen. “It was my first time in NYC and my mom calls me sobbing,” Savannah remembers. “She told me to get to a quiet place and answer my phone the next time it rang. When it did, it was The Ellen Show, they said they loved my videos and wanted to have me on the show!” Savannah had to keep the taping a secret for a couple of months, only revealing it on Facebook when she was en route to Los Angeles for the filming. The surprises, however, didn’t end there. While in make-up ahead of filming, Ellen Degeneres sat her and her family down and revealed that she was setting up a production company in Nashville to help Savannah make her dream of being a recording artist a reality. The television host hooked the family up with a manager, agent, and attorney to help guide her career — it was the beginning of a something special. From there, Savannah flew back and forth from Utah to Nashville to participate in co-writes, record demos, and meet with Nashville royalty. Including one memorable meeting with the head of Big Machine Records, Scott Borchetta. “I went into this meeting with karaoke tapes, a notebook of lyrics, and didn’t even know how to play guitar; I was a mess,” Savannah laughs. “When he asked me to sing I stood up, took my retainer out, and set it on his desk… who does that?”
After working hard for a number of months, learning the guitar and writing songs independent of her co-writes, Scott signed her to a deal with Big Machine. Her family made the collective decision to move her out to Nashville permanently, with her parents splitting time between Utah and Music City. The next few years were a rush of ups-and-down. “At 13 you’re getting this slingshot of success you don’t even know how to handle,” Savannah looks back on that time. ”You kind of just think, ‘Well I got a record deal so my entire life is going to change.’ And that’s not always the case.” After years spent in media training, out on radio tours, and writing constantly; Savannah came to the hard decision that she needed to part ways with Big Machine. “It was one of the most serious things I’ve ever had to do because that was my livelihood,” says Savannah. But the freedom gave her the chance to start writing with co-writers that fit her style and producing with someone that understand her sound; on top of a fun gig as a radio correspondent for Radio Disney. To top this time of change, her voice was recently featured on the Song Suffragettes track against discrimination and harassment against women, appropriately titled “Time’s Up”. Now, she finds herself inspired and excited about the future. As for what Savannah wants in the future, she says, “I’d love to share what my heart is in three minutes. Music is the heart of it all, to share that with people all over the world, whether they love it or hate it, it would be so rewarding to me.” NKD NKDMAG.COM
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CHLOE LUKASIAK Words by OLIVIA SINGH
Photos by CATHERINE POWELL Hair by MIA SANTIAGO Make-Up by FAYE LAUREN
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alex aiono Words by SHELBY CHARGIN Photos by CATHERINE POWELL
Born in Utah and relocated to Arizona when he was two, Alex Aiono has spent the majority of his life learning how to perform. He began at a grade school centered around performing arts where the beginning of the day was normal school, and the second half was worked around singing, dancing and performing. “A lot of my work ethic, a lot of my concept of practicing everyday came from doing that,” he says. Living in a family that constantly played music, Alex was surrounded by performing. “My older sister and I were both writing songs, it became kind of like a thing as we were growing up. It was something that we all did for fun, it was never work though, it was never business,” he explains. “It’s still something that we do you know going to concerts, or playing mu-
sic for each other.” Alex’s life has been a tale of love and support that showcases through his music. In 8th grade, “music became more and more realistic as a - I don’t want to say a career path because I don’t look at music as a career, I look at music as - it’s always just been my passion, but that’s when it started to become a real thing.” Alex took off onto his first trip with his father to meet a producer in Los Angeles, Patrick Leonard. From Alex’s personality, it’s hard to imagine somebody not completely falling in love with his charms right away, and Leonard was no exception – but it wasn’t a love at first sight situation. Leonard gave Alex a lot of advice that he took to heart. “I came back to Arizona, and I practiced everyday. Figuring out what chords are what and learning kind of the NKDMAG.COM
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melissa bolona Words by RACHEL HILL Photos by CATHERINE POWELL
As a child riddled with society’s interwoven occupational norms, Melissa Bolona never considered acting as an viable option. “When you’re little that’s all fantasy. It’s like learning to be a superhero growing up,” she says. Now, she weaves a different tale. The 28-year-old actress and model was born in Connecticut, later moving to Monmouth County, New Jersey until her mother relocated Melissa and her two sisters to Lima, Peru during middle school. Eventually, her 50
mother became homesick enough to move the clan back to Jersey where Melissa was able to live out her high school days. As an undergraduate International Marketing student at Pace University in New York, Melissa opted to study abroad in Paris one semester. Taking advantage of the rich cultural and artistic environment, she continued taking acting classes, a hobby she undertook in her youth. “In middle school my mom would take me to
auditions and some classes. It was something I always wanted to do, but it was important for her that I finish school,” Melissa says. It was during this time Melissa’s modeling career took off and she has since appeared in editorials for Harper’s Bazaar, Flaunt and Forbes to name a few. “The modeling has actually been really helpful in my transition because I got a bunch of content that established a base of my social media so I established
some sort of presence in the creative industry,” Melissa says, “I guess when I was in college and I started to model I realized there’s a big world out there. When I graduated I figured this is my shot. Before I get involved in a traditional marketing career I have a unique window. So I’m trying it. I’m sticking with it because it’s working thus far and I hope it continues.” Melissa quickly learned how to adapt to a bustling schedule. With multiple projects on the docket,
timing can be a toss-up. In 2016, after shooting Hurricane Heist on location in Bulgaria, she had a month ‘break’, which in reality was filled with learning lines and filming Malicious in Mississippi. “Knock on wood, it’s not often that timing works out like that. And sometimes I swear if you booked a job or vacation or something is when you get work; especially nonrefundable stuff. That’s really how you book work” she jokes. The short turnaround between filming these inherently opposite end of the spectrum movies led to some creative identity struggles for Melissa. “It was difficult. I went from playing a tech hacker to a sassy, kind of edgy sister,” she confesses, “It was once again one of those trying moments where you’re like, ‘OK I have to completely transform. I just was in Bulgaria for a month and now I have to do this and become someone else’.” While on set, Melissa’s philosophy is in essence, sponge-like: soak up every bit of advice, best practices, ways the directors and other actors conduct their jobs. “There’s not once that I haven’t taken away something,” she says, “I literally learned from every actor, from every director on set.” She recalls one of her first film set experiences while working on In Stereo. With an impending emotional scene, self doubt and panic struck leaving Melissa wondering “how the hell [she was] going to pull this off.” She credits overcoming professional trials like this as a sign she’s on the right path. “I was so scared about this but when push came to shove on the day it was no big deal. So I think moments like that you realize ‘Hey, I have these abilities’, and it makes you just want to keep sticking with it,” she says. Social media is often one of the
most reached for tools in an entertainer’s belt in terms of continuing to build his or her brand and staying in touch with fans. Melissa says, “I try to track out my social media, what the viewers like more and try to give them more of that content.” Putting her degree to work, the effort seems as though it’s common sense. “It’s important to keep a social media presence. It’s part of marketing — hello,” she laughs. “Everyone’s like ‘Wow, International Marketing and actress’, I’m like ‘Actually, in a way it goes hand in hand.’ I happen to be marketing myself internationally, I’m the product,” she responds. And a product she is. A swift scroll through her Instagram depicts a spirited twenty-something up for adventure, travelling around the world, with a sprinkle of promotional shots and brand partnerships mixed in. A collection of these posts are in effort to advertise her upcoming projects. In January 2018, Melissa began shooting for the sci-fi film Becoming, which centers around a young woman learning her fiancé is possessed by an unknown disease-like entity, forcing humankind to eradicate it from Earth before disaster strikes. Her other projects include Acts of Violence, an action-packed film starring Bruce Willis, Sophia Bush and Cole Hauser, released January 12, and Hurricane Heist, a Rob Cohen epic, tells the story of a team of tech hackers’ $600 million sting of a U.S treasury building during a Category 5 hurricane - scheduled to hit theatres March 9 of this year. As for a long-term goal, she’d like to earn herself an esteemed Oscar, of course. Her reasoning? “If you’re going to aim for the stars, aim for the stars,” she says. NKD NKDMAG.COM
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