I believe it was at some sort of event for either the Hellp or Yves Tumor, maybe both. This girl appeared over me, literally, I was crouched down smoking a cigarette, she stood above me as if Nancy Archer from the Attack of the Fifty-Foot Woman.
Moments later, she assured me that her friend, Maggie, was going to give us all a ride to the after-party. What the hell, sure.
She had this quiet way of commanding everything around her. Not in a loud or demanding sense, but like the world naturally arranged itself in her presence. She carried a kind of knowing I didn’t have yet, the kind you earn over time, one that I undoubtedly did not possess towards the city that I now called home. I remember little about that night; I just remember the impression she left on me.
She reassured some sort of preconceived notion I had toward Los Angeles, that the city had this innate glamour, that underneath the cement on Santa Monica boulevard there had to have been these fossils left behind of hair curlers, cake pan foundation compacts with the lard separatde from the skin colored liquid due to its age, the rubber lassos John Wayne whipped ferociously in the old westerns had to be buried somewhere deep within this city. It couldn't be what it is now without leaving some of this behind, surely.
When did you decide you were going to become an actress? Did this feel like a passive or active decision?
It was something my mother chose for me. She was a stage actress in Moscow and Moldova, and as a child, I never really heard the end of it. Small, short, and sad vignettes about this calling that she no longer could partake in– or so she told herself that.
I wanted to be a dancer, I wanted to be a fashion designer, I wanted to be a chef, a director, but she intermittently told me that I should be an actress. I eventually had someone, who is now a great friend, ask me to be in a film without any audition. When the screening of the film was over, I thought to myself, that wasn’t that bad! I enrolled in a community college and took theater. Very soon after, I fell completely in love with playwrights and what stories I could tell– It was then that I knew.
In so many ways, she embodied all of those roles the moment we met. We talked about clothing, little cafes tucked into Silver Lake, and movies we loved like secrets. She spoke about everything as if it were the coolest thing in the world, and somehow, standing there with her, you believed it might be. Victoria’s disposition is a complicated one, but a charming one. She’s passionate, yet nonchalant, effortless, but intense. Polished in a way that never reads as trying. Like Los Angeles itself: glimmering, elusive, and completely uninterested in proving anything.
She moved with a sense of glamour I didn’t know was still possible. When I think of her, I imagine her with rollers in her hair, her chin tucked into the palm of her hand, and staring down the lens of a camera. She’s every black and white portrait of every actress you’ve ever seen.
Years later, when sent flyers for Jasmin Johnson's PCH and Heroin, seeing Victoria's name on the playbill for Sunday matinees made complete and utter sense to me.
Is there any glamour left in the acting world? I have been told 90% of auditions take place via zoom now, which is positively un-glamorous.
I agree, it is unglamorous, but we must adapt with the future. Self tapes allow you to take as many tapes as you want, it allows directors and casting to really meditate on their choices, and it saves people time. I think self-tapes can be really good if you’re a creative person.
(Think Odessa A’zions recently unearthed self-tape for Marty Supreme, in which she films herself in a literal phonebooth)
How would you pitch the idea of going to a play to somebody who has never been? What can a play offer that a book, film, or photograph can't?
You should not bring anyone to a play for the first time if you know it won’t be that good. Good theatre will make you cry, influence audience members to become actors, and educate them on good writing. A bad play is even better, because you will walk out with tons of ideas.
A play can offer you luck. If everyone in the production is on point, it’s like you won something. It is incredibly rare that everything goes smoothly in a play– actors completely possessed by their characters– and if you can witness that, you were born under a lucky star. It’s not something you can share with other people. It’s just for you and whoever you came with.
Every year, Victoria texts me the sweetest message on my birthday. It always makes me swell with happiness. I thought our times together, though brief and intense, were a critical part in how I came to know and love Los Angeles. I wanted every night to feel like the night I met her, and for the most part, it really has. She bestowed a glamour on the city that is omnipresent within me now. I now see the Cahuenga Pass as a backdrop for an old western, the liquor stores I stumbled in and out of my twenty-second year of life as soundstages.
Any pre-show rituals?
I come an hour or two before call time. I take all the time in the world putting on makeup and doing my hair. I warm up for 20 minutes. I usually have a character playlist I listen to. I don’t eat or drink anything an hour before the show because if you are on stage a lot, there is no time to use the restroom. I put on my costume very early, and I run lines very, very intimately with my scene partner.
You seem to have a toe in nearly every pool, alongside acting, your vocals were featured on the Hellp song, ‘shadow’, you’re the cover art for a plethora of Fakemink singles, there's now a billboard of you overlooking the Sunset Strip for the latest Guess Jeans campaign, and you almost exclusively shoot all of Keni Titus’ cover art.. Which avenue provides you the most satiety?
Nothing fulfills me more than being an actor.
This morning, I met a friend at the Chateau for brunch. I had some sort of egg, poached. I set my onboxiously large purse down next to the legs of the rattan chairs. I nursed a pathetic hangover, pawed at slices of plain toast, chugging the lemon water as if it were to reverse any of the utterly stupid decisions I made last night, the ones that got me into this situation. When I left, only slightly better than I was off before, I decided to head to my favorite bookstore in the city. I realized I would have to take Sunset all the way down until I hit Taix, the lake, etc. You know that one intersection.
My sunglasses lay low on my nose, the tip just holding them up. I decided many weeks ago that music was worthless and too emotional. It threatened constant and taxing emotional revelations I haven't the grace to accept. So I am now listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers over my radio. The sun shines on my hand, which is limply asserting itself outside of my window.
When I look up, I am met with Victoria’s face plastered across a Guess Jeans billboard. I smile to myself, as if I just opened my phone to see a photo of my high school friend getting engaged, or announcing her pregnancy. I smile because in some way this assures me that I was right about Los Angeles, its neverending predelection for glamour, and I was certainly right about Victoria.