Gwen Hollander is an actress who spent several years in NYC doing Broadway and off Broadway productions and now is living in Los Angeles. Gwen chatted with us about about acting, her show Kidding, NYC, and how she has been spending her time during quarantine.
Photo Credit: Photographer: Birdie Thompson @birds_eye_photo
HMU: Lisa Truong
upfrontNY: When and how did you find your passion for acting?
Gwen Hollander: I was always into performance as a kid, whether it was dance or piano or singing in the school chorus. I was also the kid getting her friends to make up dances, plays and radio shows. I didn’t know that I wanted to pursue it as a career until I was 13; my middle school drama class took a field trip to see the touring production of “Phantom of the Opera,” and it just wrecked me. I couldn’t get up from my seat when it was over; I was just sitting there staring at the empty stage. The ushers finally had to move me along! I decided that night that I was going to do this. I was just so profoundly moved by that experience in the audience of that show, I still can’t really put my finger on what it was. But I think most actors have that show they saw that flipped that switch, for whatever reason.
upfrontNY: Can you tell us about Kidding and your role as Sheryl?
Gwen Hollander: The show follows Jeff Piccirillo (played by Jim Carrey), the star of a beloved children’s television show called Mr. Pickles’ Puppet Time, as he struggles to pick up the pieces of his personal life after a tragic loss. The show kind of splits its focus between the real-life Jeff who’s grieving and trying desperately to maintain his sanity, and his public persona of “Mr. Pickles” who is forced to wear a happy face for his young viewers. I play Sheryl, who plays Astronotter (one of the puppets on Puppet Time), an astronaut otter who speaks in a sort of “beep boop” language, and feels misunderstood and is easily frustrated!
upfrontNY: Do you have a favorite memory from filming the show?
Gwen Hollander: There were so many amazing and surreal moments on this show (I mean, it’s a show with Jim Carrey and a bunch of singing puppets and I’m a huge astronaut otter… so it’s a real recipe for unique experiences!). The first day filming with Jim was obviously amazing; it was just crazy to be inches away from someone I grew up watching and idolizing. But one of my most hilarious and bizarre days was filming episode 8 of Season 2, where Astronotter is shooting a Mercedes Benz commercial with NBA All Star Blake Griffin. Part of it was a photoshoot happening in the background of a scene, so Astronotter was posing like a sexy car model. Then, they stuffed Astronotter into the car, (we had to take my tail off so I could sit!), and Blake and I shot the actual commercial, sitting in the front seat of a Mercedes. There were so many moments on this show where I would think to myself “what is my life?” I was definitely thinking that throughout that entire day of shooting!
upfrontNY: Can you tell us about Marriage Material and what you enjoyed most about being a part of this?
Gwen Hollander: Marriage Material is a musical dark comedy that deals with the unrealistic expectations we have of women (and women have of themselves), and the lengths to which we will go to achieve “perfection” so that we can be worthy of love. I play Leah, a young woman who checks into a retreat that prides itself on turning women into “marriage material” after a series of failed relationships. It was an incredibly cool experience; we had a female writer/director (the amazing Oran Zegman), a largely female crew, and an almost entirely female cast, all of which is so rare. Everything about this experience was incredible and I learned SO MUCH. It was my first time being the lead of a film, it was my first time doing a musical on-camera, which is just so different from doing live musicals. I think the best things about it were how much I learned, and the relationships I developed. Oran has become one of my closest friends, and I feel an incredible bond with every single person who worked on this film, including every member of the cast and crew. Everyone worked so hard to do something that seemed impossible…we made a 25 minute musical film in 6 days! I’m very, very proud to have been a part of it. The film was acquired by Searchlight Shorts, and you can watch it through their online platforms! Here’s a link:
https://www.searchlightpictures.com/post/4364/marriage-material/
upfrontNY: You spent several years doing Broadway/Off Broadway shows in NYC. What do you love most about being on stage?
Gwen Hollander: There’s nothing like being onstage. It will always be my first love. I love the energy and the immediacy of it; there’s something so exciting about knowing that anything can happen, and that no two performances are ever exactly alike. I love that each audience has the special experience of seeing a show that no audience will ever see again, simply because each audience is different, and because actors are human and don’t reproduce the exact same thing night after night…we try our best, but it’s not humanly possible! The relationships are my favorite, both the relationship between the actors and the audience, and the relationship(s) among the cast and crew. It’s just so much fun to be onstage playing with your friends, and when you’re doing a longer run of a show (as opposed to doing a few takes of a scene for TV or film), you have time to explore and discover so many things. I love the way things develop over time in a live show.
upfrontNY: Did you have a favorite show that you were a part of and is there a show that you would love to be a part of?
Gwen Hollander: It’s impossible to pick a favorite show because so many shows were life-changing in some way, but my favorite roles that I’ve played are Eponine in Les Miserables, Belle in Beauty and the Beast (which I’ve been lucky enough to do twice), and Hope Cladwell in Urinetown. As for shows I’d love to do, I’d really like to play the Baker’s Wife in Into the Woods…I’d particularly love to play it opposite my husband as the Baker; that’s kind of the dream, and I’d love to play Jo in Little Women. I played Amy on the Broadway National Tour, and I’ve always wanted to do it again as Jo!
upfrontNY: What did you love most about living in NYC?
Gwen Hollander: New York is such an amazing city. The culture is incredible, the food is the best. But what I loved most about NYC were the very brief “in-between-season” times, before it gets too cold in the winter or too hot in the summer. The time that most people would call “Fall” or “Spring,” but those times never seemed to last for more than a couple weeks in the city, right? When you can just walk around the city and go to the park. The city can feel very punishing when it’s too hot or too cold, but when you can actually just be outside and wander around… that’s when I would experience the real magic of New York.
upfrontNY: Where was your favorite NYC spot to go?
Gwen Hollander: I loved Sheep Meadow in Central Park. I loved that on the first warm day of the year, it would always be packed; New Yorkers are so desperate to be outside in the grass! I also loved the New York Philharmonic concerts on the Great Lawn in the summer. And the diners. I had so many diners over the years, depending on where I was living, but I loved always having a diner that was “my diner.”
upfrontNY: What was the transition like from NYC to LA?
Gwen Hollander: Personally, I love living in LA. I grew up in Miami, and LA just feels more like home. As amazing as NYC is, it never felt easy for me to live there, and I was there for almost 14 years, with brief breaks in between when I was on tour or away doing a show. Seasons were new for me, having grown up in the land of constant summer, and I never really got used to it! So, the transition to LA was pretty easy in that respect…what was a little harder was kind of starting from scratch, in almost every way. In terms of the business, I had to learn the ropes out here, forge all new relationships, and start building my resume with things that were more relevant to the work being done here. I had to get a car and “remember” how to drive, really just how to feel comfortable driving; I never drove in NY! My relationship with time feels different here, too, because everything is so spread out and traffic is a huge wild card. In New York (as long as the subways were running normally, which they were NOT toward the end of my time there), you had a pretty good idea of how long it would take you to get anywhere, door to door. In LA, it’s become one of the great mysteries of life. So, I always leave 45 minutes earlier than I think I need to, which means I spend a lot of time sitting in my car when I get to wherever I’m going too early!
upfrontNY: How have you been spending your time during quarantine while social distancing?
Gwen Hollander: I’ve been keeping pretty busy so far! I feel like I’ve been more creative during the past few weeks than I would have been in an entire year, because there weren’t a million things I thought I “should” be doing. I’ve created a little series of videos called “Avenue Q(uarantine)!” I rewrote a bunch of “Avenue Q” songs to reflect our current situation, and I have friends in LA and New York making videos for me (people and puppets alike), and I’m editing them all together. It’s been a LOT of work, and I’ve never done anything quite like this before (remote collaboration is complicated!), but I’m having so much fun and am so grateful to have something to focus my energy on. And we managed to raise a bunch of money for The Actors Fund, which was an added bonus! I pulled out all my old knitting stuff, I haven’t knit at all for about 8 years. I’m not actually working on a project; I’m just knitting in a long straight line and then I’ll unravel it and start over… it’s just very calming to have something to do with my hands! I’ve also got a bunch of crafty projects that I’d been hoping to get to whenever I had time, and now I suddenly have time!
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