Meet Jessica Payne | Performer, Creator, & On Camera Coach

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

Hi Jessica, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
I am a multi-hyphenate creator like many of my favorite artists. If I am creating wonderful things with amazing people I’m going to be happy. But when someone asks “what do you do?” it is easy to feel scattered and embarrassed when the answer is you are devoting your energy to lots of different areas, not just one. Recently, I have:
-Performed (acting, singing, VO, podcast hosting and guesting)
-Directed (film, digital, live)
-Created (a TV pilot, a podcast, a blog, a website, and hundreds of videos)
-Coached (pro and college actors, business owners, CEOs, and coaches)
-Consulted (on video and social media strategy, casting, artist development, and narrative projects)

In founding my company Kika Labs I want to reinforce for myself and my community that every creative area builds on and gives more momentum to all the rest. I’m a bolder actor because I coach CEOs on camera and I’m a better director because I’ve broken down the concepts for college students. And I am able to smoothly navigate between all of these areas with the wisdom I’ve learned from podcast guests. In a society where specialization is rewarded, it is a countercultural flex to embrace that you contain multitudes!

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I am a performing artist and creator. I create art that empowers potential. So many of us limit ourselves because the way that we experience the world is different than society rewards, and we have been rewarded in the past by playing small. But our diversity is our strength.

While learning to surf and ride motorcycles, I have learned that “we go where we look.” In art the falls aren’t so literal, but over time can pull us down. Great art can and should absolutely unearth injustice and expose patterns of oppression, and yet if all we look at is problems, we’re effectively going to keep crashing into those problems. As actors, we learn to acknowledge our obstacles, but focus on the objective. And if all we have is dystopian art representing the problems of the world we have now, that’s all we’re going to keep getting.

The next step is to imagine what we do want the future to look like. We are making important steps in Hollywood and Broadway in telling more inclusive stories with more diverse cast and crew, but we have still not achieved parity with what our culture really looks like. I am so energized on projects where people of different cultures, ages, backgrounds, and abilities work together on the same story. And representation is incredibly important. I once directed an actor who broke into tears the first time he saw a character who looked like him playing a character he actually wanted to be. He had never even considered that he could go into the arts. We have the powerful opportunity of create examples for people to “see it so I can be it.” Artists have the beautiful opportunity to imagine how we want the world to be, and create worlds as templates for us to step into.

I also love working with joyful teams on stylized projects. I just was on set with a psychological thriller short film about the dangers of neurological implants with lots of fun special effects makeup.. And I’m working on my sci-fi TV pilot based in a cabaret on the far side of the Moon along with a comedy pilot about Shakespeare’s immortals working at a start up in the LA Arts district. And sometimes when I am trying to do good things out in the world, what I need more than anything is to watch and make art where people fall in love, are buddies on adventures, make stupid jokes and throw pies at each other.

It’s all about balance.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
We are hitting nature, coffee, food, art, books, and the beach! By the way, this is what I’m going to do when my best friend is Karen actually comes to LA next! Another Shoutout – Karen is a poet and executive at Libro.fm which is a really cool audiobook app that splits its profits with an independent bookstore of the customer’s choosing (So if you’re looking for holiday presents or an alternative to Audible, check it out!), and she has her own Nancy Drew fan podcast “It’s a Clue!” and co-hosts the Libro.fm podcast.

So we are definitely hitting some of my favorite indy bookstores. First up is Vroman’s in Pasadena, and then we’ll go to the Huntington Gardens, which is a beautiful and healing place (I was grateful to spend time there while recovering from my liver donation surgery). Then we’ll hit the Chevalier Books in Larchmont and get cookies at Levain Bakery and catch up at Bricks & Scones. Then we’ll hit up The Lost Bookstore downtown and The Ripped Bodice in Culver City. Finally we’ll come back to Book Soup here on the Sunset Strip and then walk to Dialog Cafe or WeHo Bistro.

We both get a kick out of “inherently dangerous” adventure sports, so we will ride Vespas around LA, go stand up paddle-boarding in the Marina, then go hang-gliding at Dockweiler Beach. Then brunch at Gjusta in Venice, and grab drinks at Gnarwhal Coffee Co. for a walk to the Venice Canals and Ocean Beach.

I’m grateful that when I first moved to LA, my friends took me in and told me that LA is what you make of it. Find your people and your places and you’ll be happy. So I’ll be sure to take Karen to visit my friends at the cafes I like to create from: Andante, Be Bright and Sightglass for the fresh roasted coffee, Fan Girl Cafe for the aesthetic, Tartine Sycamore for the bread, and Blackwood Coffee Bar and 1 Hotel for private and green outside spots. And then we’ll go to my gym, Brick, where some of the kindest and fittest creatives I’ve ever met work out.

My husband Kyle (who is a personal trainer at Brick) and I just celebrated 10 years of living in the small city of West Hollywood in the middle of LA, and his New Year’s resolution was to make sure that we have gone to every restaurant on Santa Monica Blvd in WeHo by the end of this year (having gone to many but not all of them in the past decade, of course). So I would take Karen to some of my favorite local spots from that challenge, like Galanga Thai, D-Town Pizza, and Delilah for a special night.

And finally, of course we would have to watch a film in LA! Some of my former students are in some pretty major projects coming up, so I’ll definitely drag her to one of those, bragging about them the whole way. Any of the theatres near me are lovely, and films at the Hollywood Bowl, Cinespia, backyard projectors at a friends, and the New Beverly are all a special experience. And signing up to be in the audience of a live recorded TV show is a definite life experience! But my favorite perk of being a SAG-AFTRA member is getting to see screenings with the actors and directors at talkbacks. So I would definitely have her be my plus one and cross our fingers for a hit!

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I want to Shoutout the creatives of West Hollywood. Many had to leave their families and home bases to authentically express themselves. They are loving, empathetic, and wildly free. I feel the most joyfully open as an artist that I ever have due to their examples. Plus, witnessing how effectively their unique communication styles match their artistic personalities inspires me to guide my on-camera coaching clients to define and lean in to their own unique voices.

As a sampler of the WeHo scene check out some of the powerhouse guests I have featured on my video podcast, Creator’s Cafe. Brandon Stansell, Miky Mik, Bri Oglu, and Maggie Szabo are all singer/songwriters with distinct artistic voices. Thomas Stockwell is steering the cultural future of VR at Meta and Jonathan Unger is driving impactful storytelling as the CEO Unger Media. Tehran brings provocative cross-cultural conversations to the comedy scene at the Laugh Factory. And I have too many creative crushes that are writers, actors, and filmmakers to even mention!

Website: https://www.kikalabs.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kikalabs/

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

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyJaXRzomQCqaTDNDPKluG1SHS0TXt75H

Other:
Digital Course: On Camera Academy: https://kikalabs.teachable.com/p/on-camera-academy1

Coaching: 1:1 On Camera Coaching: https://kikalabs.teachable.com/p/confidence-on-camera-1

Image Credits
Chris Prizlaff
Emily McGregor
John Anthony Sutton