Pop-Culturalist.com

Paloma Rabinov is captivating audiences with her breakout performance in An Incomplete Education. The series follows a physics professor (Dylan Walsh) and his daughter (Paloma Rabinov) in the wake of a viral epidemic. As the pair search for other surviving humans, they begin to question what matters most in life. We caught up with Paloma to learn more about her career, the four-part series, and how the project has taken new weight given the COVID-19 pandemic.

PC: How did you discover your passion for the arts?
Paloma: I had the awesome opportunity when I was in third grade to do a theater project that the entire class was involved in. I fell in love with it. I’ve always been immersed in the arts to some degree. I grew up playing the flute.

My father is a musician and he restores and repairs flutes, so I was always dabbling in a variety of different artistic practices. I finally decided between acting and dance. They’ve been a part of my life since I was ten years old.

PC: Who or what has had the biggest influence on your career?
Paloma: In general, it’s really interesting because the first name that comes into my mind is Bob Fosse. I grew up dancing more regularly than acting. So I would say a large part of my influence has been my dance background, and that still carries through. Bob Fosse was my first experience seeing dance as a new form, a new way of storytelling in this very avant-garde modern way.

I would also say that my dance teacher and mentor Julie Kay Stallcup, who owned the dance studio that I grew up in, was an absolutely huge influence—just her ideology on creating community spaces and giving back to the community through art and fostering love and healing through your practices. I carry that with me every day, no matter what kind of art I’m doing or crafting.

Career

An Incomplete Education

PC: Tell us about An Incomplete Education, your character, and what drew you to this project.
Paloma: In An Incomplete Education, I play Rachel. It’s a coming-of-age story of her trying to understand her identity in this new world and find her purpose. At the time, I did not foresee an actual pandemic occurring.

The biggest takeaway for me was the need to formulate one’s own independent thoughts from the family and taking a stance for the identity you want to create, though it may not be in line with your family’s intentions or values, and being open minded to those but also furthering your education on your own and deciding what works for you and speaking up and out when you feel that it’s unfair or unjust.

PC: You finished filming late last year before this pandemic hit. Does that bring a new light to this project, given the situation we’re in today?
Paloma: Absolutely. The postpandemic world that we’re experiencing now is very different than the one that’s presented on screen, but I think there are a lot of parallels. It has certainly dabbled on the current issues that we’re now opening our eyes to, such as the impact that the virus has had on Black and Brown communities and the need to find faith in such turbulent times. It certainly opens so many more possibilities and held a magnifying glass up to some of the major issues that are coming up right now.

PC: You only had a week to film. How were you and Dylan able to build that bond so quickly?
Paloma: He’s really open, and I guess so am I. We both felt really comfortable and it was just us two, as far as talent goes. We did spend a lot of time in the van driving to locations, waiting, and hanging out. He’s really great, and he’s very open-minded. Our personalities just meshed.

PC: Preston and Rachel have different approaches to surviving this pandemic. Is there one approach that resonates more with you?
Paloma: I think there’s certainly this need for community, whether that be one person or a group of people. It has resonated much more given the time because I’m not around the group of people that I once was and connection and communication is very limited.

PC: While the characters are in this dire situation, there is this underlying message of hope and finding community. How has that message impacted you? What do you hope audiences take away after seeing the series?
Paloma: I’ve been actively trying to become part of whatever community that I see myself in, whether that’s joining groups, getting in on Zoom calls, and getting in contact with friends that I have not seen who are across the country and living a very different experience during these times.

We’ve all been given so much time to reflect and gain compassion. We’ve been given time to educate ourselves on a lot of unwritten history that is now unraveled. I hope that people start taking the initiative to either join communities that they have wanted to be part of and something was stopping them and find what that truth in space means for them in the broader context of what’s happening.

To keep up with Paloma, follow her on Instagram. Binge-watch An Incomplete Education today.