Meet Tracy Clifton | Producer, Screenwriter, & Actress

We had the good fortune of connecting with Tracy Clifton and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Tracy, any advice for those thinking about whether to keep going or to give up?
Part of the growth you experience as an artist is you start trusting your own intuition, and it comes in really handy when you face the question of whether to keep going or to give up, particularly in the volatile and inconsistent entertainment industry. It’s also incredibly easy to fall into the trap of taking rejection personally or internalizing missed opportunities as a reflection of your self worth. Your intuition will be your biggest advocate, however. It knows what stories you absolutely have to tell, it knows what communities you hope your art resonates with, and it can become your North Star if you get to a place where you have absolute trust in it.

I’m never going to say one choice is better than the other, especially since I don’t think anyone actually ever truly gives up. Sometimes “giving up” simply means adjusting expectations, or giving yourself permission to move away from a toxic environment which has hurt your mental (or physical) health to a point where you’re completely burned out. I don’t think there’s any shame in trusting your gut and knowing you’ve outgrown a place or an industry which at many times can be more focused on profit than artistic vision.

I also don’t think there’s anything wrong with taking some time off to regroup, then heading back into the arena for the next battle. And of course I have mad respect for those artists who remain undaunted and undiscouraged regardless of the outcome when it comes to creating their art. Trusting their intuition has led them to also have complete trust in the process that things are unfolding just as they should. I’m not always as zen about my artistic journey, but on the days I’m more trusting, I find I’m also creating my art from a much purer, tapped-in place, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence.

I think the best way we can create is from a place of no expectations of what happens once our art is released out into the world – and when we feel fulfilled regardless, we’ll know it’s the right step to keep going on our path. However, if we end up feeling frustrated or as if whatever we gain from putting our art into the world isn’t enough, it might be best to make some course corrections on how we approach our process. That might look like giving up to some, but I view it more as adapting – something you can’t really do if you don’t have honest conversations with yourself about your capacity. Trusting your intuition will help you not only figure out the right path for your creative process, but also make sure you don’t go down a road that doesn’t match your integrity.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
What I’m most excited about in my work is also what I’m most proud of, and also what sets me apart – I often create stories from the lens of mental health, because that’s a very personal and important subject to me that I still think most people are in the dark about. I feel it’s still a very taboo topic, which is why I find myself drawn to horror, which is at its strongest when it’s breaking through those taboos to hold a mirror up to the audience.

Where I’m at professionally is the result of many paths converging as I struggled to just simply take the next best step. I graduated from university with a BFA in theater performance, moved up to LA, and promptly found that my “type” was undefinable. In order to get cast early on, actors must fit into a specific box of what their type is, and most casting offices, while continuing to call me back, couldn’t quite put their finger on it.

I decided that if I wanted to act, I need to write my own dream roles – and then I realized I’d need to produce them as well. So I taught myself screenwriting and producing, and through a lot of trial and error (more error than trial), I’ve learned how to make short films with small budgets, fantastic actors, and smart writing.

I’d rather be a jack-of-all-trades than only specialize in one aspect of the entertainment industry. I want to be able to be useful on any set I step foot on, and I love collaborative creative processes. I want to work closely with everyone and learn as much as I can about making films.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
The best part of living in LA is that there are many LA’s to choose from. We’ve got forests, mountains, oceans, and deserts; small walkable neighborhoods in the valley and bustling city streets in DTLA, and some of the most diverse food and people in the country.

If this was the first time my bestie was going to see LA, I’d start with a sunrise hike in Griffith Park and then grab breakfast at The Trails cafe off of the Fern Dell Trail. Since we’re in already in Los Feliz, we’d maybe spend a few hours shopping the indie stores along Vermont and Hillhurst, like Skylight Books and Squaresville, before grabbing lunch at Fred 62’s. For great views of the city, I kid you not, one of the best places to go is Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, which has winding roads that take you high up above everything else. It’s incredibly peaceful there, with lots of shade if you want to just go for a casual walk or slow drive, and of course I find cemeteries absolutely fascinating.

Since we’re already heading east, I’d take her to Eagle Rock to finish up the day with an amazing slice of pizza from Casa Bianca, and if she’s still got energy and isn’t feeling the jet lag, we could round out the night over at Highland Park Bowl. And that’s just day one!

I’d most likely show her Malibu (including brunch overlooking the ocean at Malibu Farm Pier Cafe) and the Santa Monica Pier sometime during the week, as well as the small shops and little cafes in Pasadena (like Green Street Cafe) and Burbank (Romancing the Bean.) We could walk Magnolia Park in Burbank as well, get potato balls from Porto’s. There’d definitely be a day when I’d take her to the Natural History Museum, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, and the Getty or the Skirball.

Downtown LA is a treasure trove of wonderful things to see and do – you can visit the Bradbury building and take pictures of of the first floor and old-timey elevators; stop by Grand Central Market for a ton of different food options; and book a tour through the LA Conservancy to visit some of the old theaters on Broadway. Since we’re obviously obsessed with books, we’d stop by The Last Bookstore and walk over to the LA Central Library so she could see all of the classic architecture. We’d end up in Little Tokyo having some amazing ramen.

There’s so much to see and do here, I could plan an itinerary for a month solid and never run out of new things to show people who are just visiting. LA truly is one of the best cities on the planet for art, food, culture, and diversity.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I have to credit two of my closest college friends, Lira Diecidue and April Wish, with helping me realize I could create my own projects without having to wait for permission from others. For our senior year at our university, we decided to write a series of monologues and invited any woman who wanted to perform one to be a part of our cast. We turned the monologues into one long show that we were allowed to produce in our large, main-stage theater for three evenings.

We ended up with a cast of over 20 women, many of whom had felt overlooked when it came to being cast in other theater dept. plays, and we asked the audience for donations to a women’s shelter instead of charging admission. We “sold out” for all 3 nights of our performances, donated over $500 to our local shelter, and empowered the women in our theater department to find their own voices and create their own opportunities.

Now that the three of us are living in Los Angeles, we continue to create material for ourselves through writing, producing, and acting in our own projects. Doing the show in college was a huge reminder that we can always build a place for ourselves in whatever creative environment we are in.

Website: https://www.tracyclifton.com

Instagram: @tracy.m.clifton

Twitter: @littlecrane