Meet Ari Fromm | Actor, Voice Actor & Content Creator

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

Hi Ari, why did you decide to pursue a creative path?
I was supposed to be a woman in STEM, but it turns out, I’m neither.

Before I’d reached elementary school, my parents noticed I was uncommonly good at math. Surprisingly, unusually good. By fourth grade, I was in one of those “gifted and talented” programs, and my middle and high school years were spent in STEM-specific programs. I started programming at age 11, and I was great at it, so by the end of high school, I decided to pursue computer science.

I’m not trying to brag. My CS past is something I usually hide about myself. But I want you to understand why I stuck with it for so many years. It really seemed like the career I was meant to do. Every summer, I went to theater camps and studied acting, but I rarely had time to be in plays during the school year. There was too much homework! I worked my ass off studying, devoted to getting into the best college, all the while fighting off the stigma of being in the small minority who wasn’t male in the advanced STEM classes.

It filled me with rage, the way my teachers and peers would underestimate my abilities, forcing me to prove myself over and over, just because I wasn’t born with a penis. Maybe that’s why I stuck with computer science for so long. Maybe that’s why I stuck with being a girl.

In high school, I started to realize, in all my willful defiance as a girl in STEM, I had neglected to consider what about girlhood I related to. When I asked all the other girls I knew how they knew they were girls, they all had great answers. None of which I shared. I had been so focused on the (misogynistic) idea of being “not like other girls,” that I had failed notice I wasn’t a girl at all.

I came out as nonbinary and trans when I started college. I knew computer science was ultimately the responsible career goal, but I couldn’t shake how much joy acting brought me, so I decided to double major in Computer Science and Theater.

The thing about realizing the gender binary is a myth at the age of 17 is this: You start to question what else you were taught that might not be true.

So I kept pursuing CS, really trying to make it work, all the while wondering if acting might actually be a viable career option for me. I kept fighting the gender battle, now often the only nonbinary person in STEM spaces, but slowly, the fight became more important to me than the actual work. I didn’t care about the tech industry – In fact, I was morally opposed to a lot of what was coming out of tech. The exploitation of resources, the reproduction of human biases in machine learning, the disregard for how new tech could hurt society: I didn’t want to support it. Every summer internship I held made me hopeless, depressed. I didn’t want to contribute to that world.

Meanwhile, I continued acting. Being nonbinary wasn’t much easier there. People in theater spaces were more accepting than in STEM, but gender also played a far greater role in the work we were doing together. Who could I play as a nonbinary actor? I was up for playing any gender, but I wanted the people casting me to understand that I wasn’t a cis woman, and to at the very least also consider me for male parts. Some teachers disagreed, and I experienced enough discrimination at my first college that I had to transfer.

But even with all that, acting brought me joy beyond my imagination. Every time I got to be on stage, I was increasing visibility for nonbinary people, raising awareness of gender diversity. I’m visibly trans and gender non-conforming, so taking up space with my art is an act of resistance.

I finished my degree in Computer Science and Theater, and I sincerely hope to never use Computer Science again. The world doesn’t need more programmers right now. We need more artists, advocates, creatives. I’m an actor, through and through.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I moved to Los Angeles to pursue screen acting because I want to be part of trans representation in media. People in this country and around the world are so afraid of trans people right now, and I think in part that’s because they don’t know us. I want to be a visible nonbinary person telling trans stories so that people who don’t know trans people personally can start to see that we’re all just humans.

That being said, it is hard to break into this industry when you’re not born into it, and it’s even harder to break into it when you’re not born into the gender binary. There are so few parts for nonbinary actors, and most often, big budget projects won’t cast a visibly trans actor when they could cast a cis one, no matter how good at acting I might be.

So, in the meantime, as I’ve been trying to break in, I’ve expanded my skills and ambitions. I got good at voice acting, and I love being able to play a full range of genders, including ones that don’t match my physical appearance. I’ve also started making educational videos around trans issues on social media, and I’ve expanded those to include creative skits. As I mentioned before, my partner Caden and I just started a series where I talk to puppets about gender (Sesame Street style). I’ve also started a series of sketches where I play a bunch of different fruits, as a satirical metaphor for the experience of being nonbinary in a binary world. That series has me using my acting, voice acting, and improv training, all to communicate about gender to a wider audience. I hope you’ll check some of them out!

@ari.fromm on Instagram and TikTok

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
We’d definitely go on a hike in Griffith Park, maybe up to the Observatory just to see the view of the city. I also love the zoo over there. And then at some point we’d have to get matcha in Little Tokyo. But honestly, my favorite way to explore LA lately is by going to protests. Amidst all the horror in the news lately, it has been so heartening to see so much of Los Angeles turning out to support good causes, from immigration to Palestine to trans rights and more. Go march in the streets and yell with a bunch of strangers. It’s the best.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I want to give my shout out to my incredible boyfriend, Caden Healander. He’s actually the one who referred me to Shoutout LA, so you should go read his article after you’re done reading mine. Caden is an actor, puppeteer, writer, and all-around inspiring artist. He’s also just the sweetest, most generous human. Artistically, he inspires me to bring joy and silliness into my work. To not take myself so seriously. But personally, his care and love and belief in me have allowed me to believe more in myself. I take more risks because of him, trying more forms of art that I might not be good at. Without him, I don’t know if I’d be voice acting, and I certainly wouldn’t be making some of the goofier videos I post on social media. His love makes me a more confident person.

Also, we’ve just started making trans educational puppet videos together! Go check them out on Instagram.

Website: http://arifromm.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ari.fromm

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZIjkYnlhFxWyvmgKXOmgAw

Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@ari.fromm?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc

Image Credits
Daniel Daleon, A Klass, Caden Healander