Pop-Culturalist.com

Creative luminary Izzy Stevens has made it her mission to connect with the world through her art. From projects like Underbelly to Puberty Blues, Izzy has created lasting impressions and impact with the characters she’s brought to life on the screen. She’s best known for her breakout role in the Occupation franchise. Pop Culturalist had the pleasure of speaking with Izzy about her career, Occupation: Rainfall, and an exciting new business venture that’s helping other artists find their voices.

Career

PC: How did you discover your passion for the arts?
Izzy: Good question. I started as a ballerina. I’ve been dancing since I was three years old. My parents separated when I was four. It was funny because my mom was like, “Go and take ballet classes.” I really enjoyed being a dancer. Then, my dad was like, “Well, what about acting? Wouldn’t you like to do that, too?” So, I grew up as a kid who did both. I actually received a scholarship to a performing arts high school for ballet. But when I was there, I realized that I loved to dance, but I wasn’t disciplined enough. I wasn’t like all of the other dancers around me. I realized that I didn’t fit into that world. I was much cheekier, a little bit boisterous, outspoken, very creative, and wanted to tell stories in a different way.

I found myself really attracted to everyone that was in the drama stream. Eventually, I found the courage to start that conversation and then moved over to the acting stream of my performing arts high school. It was amazing. We were doing three hours of acting a day, and I was in total heaven. Then, an agent happened to be in the audience of one of the plays that I was in and approached me after the play and said, “I’d love to represent you.” At seventeen, I had no idea what that meant. Also, in my teenage years, I was very rebellious. I was like, “Sure, sounds great. Whatever.” I didn’t realize what it all meant. [laughs]

A month later, I walked up to an audition, and they booked me for the part. It was a series regular role on a great Australian television show called Underbelly. That really sobered me up in a sense; I became very serious. The second I stepped onto set, I was like, “Wow. This is where I belong. This feels right.” I haven’t looked back.

PC: Who or what has had the biggest influence on your career?
Izzy: It sounds kind of nebulous, but the idea of sharing stories and empathy with an audience is the driving force for me—being able to contribute positively to the world, tell stories, and collaborate.

Of course, I could point out people who I’m inspired by, but it always comes back to the reason I do this. I think about this a lot, actually, because this isn’t an easy industry to be a part of. It’s not a walk in the park. It’s not like, “I’m going to be an actor,” and suddenly you’re landing all these roles.

No matter what level you’re at, it’s constantly tough. You’re facing adversity all the time. You’re facing rejection. I often think to myself, “Why am I doing this? Why do I keep doing this?” I’ve tried to channel more energy into my directing career, but the feeling that I feel on set and in that space, in that character, is like nothing else. I will never not long for that self-expression.

PC: During those more challenging moments, how are you able to persevere?
Izzy: That’s a great question. I’m not sure how to answer that. For me, there’s no other option.

You have to look at the greater meaning of it. I have a spiritual side. It feels like this is a chosen path and doesn’t necessarily feel like a choice; it feels like this is the way that I know how to be, how to feel like myself whilst I’m creating.

It’s funny because I’ve been talking about this a lot lately. Naomi Osaka has come up. It really made me think about the way that we look at fame, the way that we look at success, and how they intertwine, especially in a cultural arts’ perspective and in a sports’ perspective. We can really get mucked up about that if we’re not careful about how we approach our careers.

The fame doesn’t draw me in; it’s not exciting to me. I’m a really private person. But fame’s sort of this vehicle to greater success and to be able to reach more people, touch more people’s lives, and make people feel related and connected. That’s what keeps me going—it’s that feeling that I can tell stories and collectively help people feel more connected, which makes our world a more connected world. That’s really important to me.

PC: You were mentioning earlier that in addition to being an actress, you’re also a writer, producer, and director. How has your work behind the scenes made you a stronger actress and vice versa?
Izzy: That’s a lovely question. I went to film school between projects. I had a couple of series regular roles early on in my career. Then, there were a couple of years where I wasn’t working professionally—that’s when I put myself through film school. At the time, between seventeen to twenty, whenever it was, I was working on these different television shows. I was watching actors that I really admired ask questions on set and be creatively collaborative with filmmakers, directors, everyone. I thought, “Well, that’s the kind of actor that I want to be and show up as on set. I want to be able to be the person that understands the function of everything so I can tell a story better, and so I can work and function better as an actress.”

I thought going through film school was going to make me a better actor, but what it did was show me how much it drew me to the skill of directing, which I’ve had since I was a kid. When I was a kid, I was the bossiest person on the playground. They tried to expel me from preschool. [laughs] From preschool! Before I was four years old, they tried to expel me from preschool because I was too bossy, and the teachers couldn’t handle it. My parents were like, “Are you kidding? She’s a young girl. You can handle her.” I was trying to direct everyone to act out the final death scene of Titanic. I guess they had a reason to be upset. [laughs]

When I went to film school, I was like, “I love this because I’m in a different role here. I’m creating the story. I’m creating the vehicle for which that story can be told.” It made me feel so connected to the material. More than anything, I would say I’m a director and an actor. Writing comes naturally to me, but I write as a means to an end so that I can direct at the moment. Producing isn’t my chosen thing to do. People will ask me to do it, and I find it hard to say no to a project that’s important.

Occupation: Rainfall

PC: You’ve got a new film out now. What can fans expect from Occupation: Rainfall?
Izzy: It’s a very, very explosive, high-octane action sci-fi film. It’s lot of fun and it has a lot of great names. I worked really closely with Ken Jeong. It was hilarious: we’re filming this very intense sci-fi action film. I’m on set. They’re setting up the shot. He and I are riffing and making each other laugh and rolling out the jokes. Then suddenly, it was like, “Okay, cameras are up. Get ready.” We were like, “Oh sh-t. We’ve got to be serious right now. It’s a life-or-death scenario.” [laughs]

It was absurdly funny working with him, even though we were working with such intense material. I think that people will be excited to watch it, especially if they enjoyed the first film, which has been on Netflix. We got really great feedback from the first one. If they enjoyed the first one, they’re going to love the second one, because it’s bigger and more intense.

PC: That’s the perfect segue to this next question. This franchise has been incredibly well received. What do you think is resonating most with audiences?
Izzy: Good question. There’s something quite charming to a small-town Australian crew at the helm of the first one, which isn’t a story that you always see. You always see the one guy that’s the head of the family; he’s going to take the charge. But this is a group of misfits. I’m playing a seventeen-year-old girl when you first meet her. She falls in love with the town’s homeless guy. They’re both part of the resistance fighting aliens. It’s like you can’t make this up. [laughs] But in many ways that’s life.

A lot of the time, you’ll hear stories in real life and think, “You can’t make this up,” but you don’t always see those kinds of stories on the screen. This feels really honest to what could happen in a small town: a group of misfits banding together and creating this resistance. It was so much fun to play this role and to also revisit it for the sequel.

My character is really tough, strong, and loyal to her family. I feel like if we ever did have some ground invasion, I’d be like, “I’m putting on my Isabella Bartlett shoes, and I’m going to channel her because she knows what to do.”

PC: What was it like jumping back into this character? Did you learn anything new about her?
Izzy: It was really interesting. It’s not the first time that I’ve done that. When I was on Puberty Blues, I played a character over two seasons. I’ve had that experience revisiting a character after six months to a year, but this was different because the film is set two years later. A lot has changed. My character is no longer this young woman who’s constantly feeling like she’s irrelevant or questioned in owning her space.

She’s now one of the community leaders. She’s very much respected and appreciated in her community. She’s the peacekeeper of the community. She holds all the weapons. She enforces the rules. People look to her for guidance. It was really quite validating coming into that space. This is how I imagined she would be and who people wanted to see her as in the first film. People were always telling her, “You can’t do that. You can’t do this.” People are always telling women that all the time. “This is who you are. This is who you need to be.” It’s like, “No. Let’s be who we are. That’s our strength.”

PC: You just started your own business. Can you tell us about Creative Luminaries and the company’s mission?
Izzy: Thank you for asking that. Creative Luminaries is a private coaching platform that helps actors and filmmakers go from script to screen. Our whole ethos is to encourage people to stop waiting for some elusive big break and actually feel celebrated as creatives. This industry is fickle. There are many ups and downs. A lot of the time you’re waiting for the phone to ring. Creative Luminaries helps people make their own work, whether it’s a short film, a feature film, script, a pilot, or just figuring out ways to build a network or to get into a room and pitch. We tackle a lot of these different things that feel almost impossible in the industry, especially if you haven’t worked in a place where people can say, “Now we can validate you because we understand who you are based on this project that you’ve done.”

This is a passion project for me, but also a business that I have a lot of vision for. I’ve started offering scholarships to minorities because we need to start figuring out how to have more voices in this industry, and not just voices that are already in the industry. It’s easy to give roles to the same people who are already representing various cultures, but what about the people that haven’t had that space yet?

We’ve started offering those scholarships. My aim is to create a production house where we’re actually helping people make films and help people get their start because there are so many amazing creatives out there that really deserve the time, the space, and the validation that comes with having work out there.

To keep up with Izzy, follow her on Twitter and Instagram. Watch Occupation: Rainfall wherever you stream movies.

Photo Credit: Ben Cope