Meet Carola Di Franco | Actress

We had the good fortune of connecting with Carola Di Franco and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Carola, any advice for those thinking about whether to keep going or to give up?
Auditioning, like any other job interview process, is a numbers game. You will get rejected more often than not. It is such a competitive industry, and it takes a lot of time, patience, skill, and luck, to book something. Which is why many end up giving up. I found that seeing the auditioning process as a “means to an end” would leave me with a lot of hopes and expectations every time, and whenever a rejection would come, it would crush me. So, that was a change I made that has helped me a lot to keep my positivity and motivation. I started seeing the audition as the accomplishment in itself. At the end of the day, the only reason I keep going is because I love acting, and an audition allows me to do it. It becomes a win-win situation.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I moved to the US from Brazil when I was 13 years old. At the time, I had no idea what I wanted to be “when I grew up.” But, having moved to a whole new country right before Summer started, with no friends, resulted in many hours sitting in front of my computer watching YouTube videos. Until one day I thought to myself, why not give it a try? I grabbed all the pillows I could find, stacked them up, added some boxes and books on top of the pillows, taped my phone to one of the boxes, and leaned the stack of pillows/boxes/books to a wall. I just started recording anything; some challenges I had seen online, I would sometimes reenact scenes from movies I liked, and sometimes I would just sit there and talk about random stuff. I just loved the camera so much, and immediately I knew that’s what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, and so I made a plan: I would spend all my high school years focusing on getting good grades, so I could go to college in Los Angeles, and start pursuing this dream. Well, that part worked out, but the challenge I faced when getting here 5 years ago, was that I was international and on a student visa. I couldn’t even work on anything, apart from unpaid student productions, and there was pretty much nothing I could do about it.

But that’s what I did. I auditioned and was part of as many student shorts I could get my hands on. I used the time to take acting classes and get better. I also used to time to work on my accent. I really just tried doing as much as a could. There were times that were really challenging and have made me want to give up. I have felt that all my efforts were for nothing. If it’s hard for someone without an accent, who is American, to book a role, it would be impossible for me to do so. I didn’t even know how one would get their hands on an audition like that. It was just an endless rabbit hole of inconveniences that were slowly making me want to give up and driving me crazy. At the time, I wasn’t very patient either. I wanted things to happen quickly, and I just couldn’t accept that there was nothing I could do.

During the COVID lockdown was when I reached my lowest, and it led me to want to work on myself to change my mindset. Two books that I read that really changed the way I think and shaped the way I live my life right now are “Letting Go” by David R. Hawkins, and “The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle. I started trying to live and enjoy my life as it was happening currently, rather than always just living for my future. I became a much happier person, and it was almost magical how things just seemed to start working in my favor. I recently just finally got my work permit, after over 10 years of living here, and I’m so excited for what’s to come.

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.
My favorite place in LA is definitely the Point Dume Natural Preserve. I love a view, and one of the most beuaitufl ones I’ve ever seen is there. It feels like you’re looking at a painting. I am sure that if I took a friend to go see the sunset from there, they would remember it for the rest of their life.

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?
Definitely my family. I’m very lucky that I come from a family of film lovers. My mom did acting and modeling in Brazil since her childhood, so me and my brother grew up accompanying her to auditions and shoots. My uncle also owned a movie rental store and was a huge cinephile, so whenever we visited him we would get endless fun facts about different movies. It comes as no surprise to anyone in my family that both me and my brother, who’s an aspiring director/cinematographer, grew up to also be huge film lovers and want to work in the industry. My parents are so supportive of us pursuing this dream, and I really owe everything to them.

Instagram: @caroladifranco

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caroladifranco

Other: https://imdb.me/caroladifranco