Hello Beautiful People,
Our next featured actress is just that – beautiful, both inside and out. Meeting Daniella Rabbani is the equivalent of hanging out with a childhood friend that you haven’t seen for ages, one that makes you smile and laugh just by saying hello, one that listens with fierce intensity & gives the greatest feedback & support, one that makes you walk a little bit taller, just by knowing her. Daniella is an artist in every sense of the word. As a graduate of NYU Tisch, Daniella’s Off-Broadway credits include: Gimple the Fool, The Adventures of Hershele Ostropolyer, The Golden Land, Israel Horovitz’s Mid-East Pieces, 70/70 Horovitz Project, Liz Swados’ Atonement: an Oratorio, Bastard. Her regional credits include: Vermont Shakespeare, Actors Shakespeare Company of NJ, Minnesota Fringe and Edinburgh Fringe…AND, she sings. Her select NY Concerts: Jazz at Lincoln Center, Town Hall, 92Y Tribeca and the YIVO institute. I’m blessed to be able to call this lovely lady a friend, and blissfully happy to introduce her to you all.
TWT: Did you always want to be an actress?
DR: The short answer is yes. The long answer is that I do remember when I was seven I recall wanting to be a manicurist. I really like making people smile, and I really like people laugh. My father is a singer, he has a really beautiful voice, and singing and performing was always part of my upbringing. I don’t know when I decided, I want to be an actor, but the desire was always there.
TWT: What advice would you give to students who wish to pursue a career as an actor/actress?
DR: On the craft front, I tell my students what I have learned the “hard way”, and that is to reveal yourself. There is armor that we all must carry to get through the day, and it is the artist’s and the actor’s job to take that off, as often as possible. Reveal yourself so that you give the audience a chance to reveal themselves, and see themselves through you. ON the business front of acting, I would tell students to fall in love with it. Fall in love with being your own CEO. Trust yourself to lead your company through the world, because once you’re the CEO of your own company you have power, and as an actor it’s an easy to fall in the trap of thinking that you don’t have any power. But if you are your own CEO, and putting your own work into the universe, there will be people who fall in love with you, as imperfect as you are.
TWT: You have your own web series coming up! Can you tell our readers what that’s about?
DR: My background is in theater, but my future in television. How do I bridge that gap? I reached out to my favorite collaborator and director/writer, her name is Diana Snyder. We sat down for coffee, and I tried to pitch to her this idea about a three-minute, short film. I really wanted to work with her, because I felt like we really got one another. And she actually presented a completely different idea, about this new television series that she was writing. We talked, and worked on the script and concept for months, but as it turns out, the path to getting a network to pick up our show seemed a lot longer than we’d like, but the web, well that’s just waiting for new quality content. People need a reason to laugh, even if it’s in the middle of the day, and a web series is the perfect way to do that. It’s also a perfect blend of collaboration between Diana and myself – the details will come once it’s released, but if you take away one thing it should be this – share your talents, and create your own work.
TWT: Do you have a dream role, and if so, what is it?
DR: I would love to play Hermia in A Midsummer’s Night Dream before I’m too old. I would love to be in a beautiful, really well produced Shakespeare play. I would love that.
TWT: Just for fun, should you ever find yourself stranded on a desert island, what movies would you want to have with you?
DR: The Little Mermaid and The Princess Bride.
TWT: Just for fun, what sound do you love and what sound do you hate?
DR: I love the sound of my new puppy drinking water. I had the sound of really bad dry mouth.
TWT: In today’s economy, arts programs are being cut. What reasons would you give a politician for preserving the arts?
DR: When I first graduated from NYU, I taught at the Stella Adler Outreach Division. I taught inner city kids who were full of passion and life, but had no outlet to express that. I teach movement for actors, and I could feel how their energy was sort of like a pipe that was clogged – there was no fluidity. We worked hard, physically and emotionally to release that energy. One student in particular worked hard, and I’m sure he’ll be a professional actor. But, he’s a light to his community. He will inspire others with his story. He sought out the education and the scholarship, but imagine what would’ve happened if we, as professionals had come to his school, and his community? Imagine the potential that we’d have as a society? The possibilities are endless.
TWT: Who is/was your greatest teacher?
DR: Jena Necrason, she’s the Head of Movement at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting. I was raised in a very conservative environment, and the first year of actor training I was just afraid, and Jena saw me. She saw my light, she saw me, and she helped me out of the confines I had put on myself. I was her apprentice for years, and then she gave me a job at the Stella Adler Studio. I walk around the streets of New York knowing that there was someone out there who cares about me, and that’s the beauty of teaching. To the teachers of the world – find the light in one student in your class that you love, and that’s all it will take to change the classroom climate for the better. Jena made me a fully expressed artist and teacher; she made me want to be a teacher like her. She made me understand what it’s like to connect with an educator.
Thank you, Daniella!
Live, Love, Learn,
Megan &