Sell Out, A Series: 5 Questions with Em Haine
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Sell Out is a series by interdisciplinary artist Angela Fama (she/they), who co-creates conversations with individual artists across Vancouver. Questioning ideas of artistry, identity, “day jobs,” and how they intertwine, Fama settles in with each artist (at a local café of their choice) and asks the same series of questions. With one roll of medium format film, Fama captures portraits of the artist after their conversations.
Em Haine (all pronouns) is a Canadian actor. Follow them on Instagram @emhaine
Location: Nelson the Seagull
What do you make/create?
Acting for film and television is how I keep the lights on in my flat. Currently, I’m a series regular on SyFy’s Reginald the Vampire. Last year, I played the lead in two feature films that came out. One was a rom-com called Why Can’t My Life Be A Rom-Com? for E! channel. The second was a queer indie film written and directed by Sandi Somers, titled Hailey Rose. I played Hailey. That’s doing the festival circuit now. We had our Canadian debut at Calgary International Film Festival, and our American debut at Cinequest in San Jose, California—so stoked.
As a child, I got kicked out of a lot of different things, and was bored by a lot of different things. Community musical theatre, as a really young kid, was the one place that could really harness my ADHD energy, my high expressive self, all my emotions, and this momentum for life that I’ve always had. I really fell in love with it. There was something about live performance. I remember being really young and being on stage for the first time in a theatre. All of our parents were there. I was probably five – I don’t know how old I was – and having the audience react to something I would say, like them laughing…I guess there was something about being seen in those moments. I think it’s quite an intimate connection that performers have with their audience.
I didn’t stay in theatre. I had a turbulent and precarious youth, but I’ve always been a very emotive person. It was a seed that was planted really young, I was like, “Oh, I love that, and people seem to like seeing me in that role as well.” So, even though my life took a bunch of different turns, it was always something that I felt like I wanted to return to. I never told anyone because I wouldn’t have been able to bear the weight of someone saying, “Oh you? You want to be an actor? Good luck!” I got plenty of that once I started actually doing the thing, but at that time it was so precious. It felt too fragile a dream to have been uttered to anybody other than my very best childhood friend. We plotted and schemed this whole career for me during late night phone calls in our respective bedrooms – she was going to be my cool mysterious “assistant” that stood in the back of all my press photos with sunglasses on, who nobody could name but was always beside me at the centre of it all… we had all these dreams lol. But, yeah, I guess when I came back to acting as an adult, I really had no idea what it even was, I just remembered those fleeting feelings from when I was younger.
Luckily, I took a leap: I moved to London, UK, and found this Meisner program led by people who really understood the psychology of human existence and had this insatiable curiosity for it. They truly believed — this is where it becomes a little bit spiritual, some of the fundamentals of acting — that there’s nothing that separates any of us in life. It’s just the circumstance of where you’re born, how you’re raised, the people that you meet, your privilege, your lack of privilege, whatever circumstance you’re born into. I think having other people reflect that back to me, which is something that I think I always innately believed but didn’t have words for, meeting other people in my early 20s, who also saw the world that way, it put me on a trajectory of wanting to ask more questions and wanting to meet more people. Like, wanting to really be in life, experience it, understand it. I think that is what makes a really beautiful performer, or artist of any kind: someone who deeply examines our existence.
What do you do to support that?
Everything that I do now to support myself as an artist is rooted in mind, body, spirit, care and harmony; and maintaining relative sobriety.
When I first decided to commit entirely to this craft, I basically resigned myself to the fact that I would be a server for the rest of my life, and I had to ask myself if I was going to be ok with that. You hear the term “struggling artist” and see your heroes in the industry – some of them make it big right out of the gate but for the majority of them that “overnight success” is ten, twenty years into their practice. So I’ve had every type of random Craigslist job – dog walker, server, bartender, nanny, office data entry, renting out giant games, Safeway cashier, clothing retail, model for a University photography program, sandwich maker – and I was bad at like 100 % of those jobs.
I was the worst server though. I was clumsy. I was forgetful. I was high the majority of the time. I wouldn’t remember people’s orders, and I would drop everything. Oh I’ve spilled pitchers of beer on people – luckily on occasion I can be charming, or at least personable, so usually they would forgive me and laugh it off – but oh, I was so bad at all those jobs. You just have to keep at it. Acting’s a long game that can be so punishing, there’s so much rejection, but if you keep at it and roll with the punches, you’ll book a gig, and it feels like you hit the jackpot. Highest of highs. There’s definitely a gambler spirit to this whole game. Gotta play to win... I also believe there’s room enough for everyone to shine.
I started by doing a lot of free work, free Indies, student films, auditions are all unpaid…now a decade in, auditions are still unpaid but I’m in a place where I’m wanting to create my own work, tell my own stories… There’s forever a hustle involved and I continually have to ask myself: “Do I really love this? Is it worth bleeding out for?” and for me, it is.
In order to support that drive, at the moment, my focus is on committing to my daily rituals. I think a lot of people who are drawn to this travelling circus of an industry come from some kinda wacky trauma, or they just have a lot of big feelings to share and that’s why they’re drawn to it, which I obviously relate to. For me personally, regular maintenance means regular yoga, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, seeing my therapist, and somatically caring for my body – which may sound corny, but it’s my instrument, and if I want to get up and work a 16 hour day, I have to be physically/mentally/spiritually fit enough to do that. What people see on TV, those few minutes onscreen, we’re shooting a whole day to get those few minutes, and talking to a billion different departments of people, all coming together to make movie magic happen. So yeah, all that as well as incorporating creative daily side missions all support me to show up and do the job
Describe something about how your art practice and your “day job” interact.
On one hand, it’s like doing anything that’s good for the plot; and on the other hand, it’s also cultivating discipline, focus, and follow through in the daily act of creation.
I feel inspired by almost every medium. Classic ADHD. So I really try to choose and reduce down to, say, three main projects at a time. So right now, my three main creative projects for this year are finishing my final draft of a plant horror comedy short film that I’m writing, studying music theory on the guitar—which I love—and, since getting back from India, I’ve started doing Yantra paintings which are a meditative focal point through the medium of painting.
I think all of these things not only support my craft but they fuel the flame of artistry. I think I would be, and have been, super bored, uninspired, and even depressed from focusing solely on my acting career. Everything feeds into itself at the end of the day like a snake eating its own tail. I’m at my happiest when I’m doing the multi-hyphenate thing, for sure.
What’s a challenge you’re facing, or have faced, in relation to this and/or what’s a benefit?
Getting out of my own way. Understanding that the veil of competition is completely illusionary. There is no competition, even if we’re going for the same part, we’re different people, at the core, we’ve had different life experiences. If you get it, it was meant for you. I’m a big believer these days that what’s meant for you will find you; that you don’t have to chase, you can just attract.
Another challenge for me in lines. To this I want to say something about ADHD and TikTok... I’m a huge fan of TikTok. Big lurker. I think it’s a revolutionary platform because there are people speaking so candidly about core truths in their life, and from that I gained all this information about ADHD. Finding resources like the Pomodoro Technique where they suggest that you study for a short intensive period, take a short break and then go back. One of the hardest parts of this job for me is getting off book (learning lines) because I find it so mundane, the repetition of trying to lift it off the page is excruciating for me to do solo. The best part is once I get there – on the day, on the set – I’m playing, it becomes so fluid and interactive, that’s the magic! But, the prep work before that I’ve been struggling with for years. There are a lot of neurodivergent people in this industry… I know I’m not going to be able to do this job like some of the people around me are doing it, and that’s ok, that is more than enough, my way, it’s a work-in-progress.
Ultimately every challenge eventually becomes something to draw from, a gem of a resource, a unique identifier that gives me my own expression as a performer.
Have you made, or created, anything that was inspired by something from your day job? Please describe.
Oh I’ve got oodles of stories from all of the random jobs that I’ve had in my life. Life inspires art. Really I think it all comes down to cultivating the sacred space in which creation can happen, because creation itself is just desire, plus time, plus discipline. For me, the secret to art lies in stillness and discipline and even boredom. Allowing and sometimes demanding for those spaces to exist in our world, a space to foster an idea to completion.
Like: The other night I was out walking my dog, Igg, for her last walk of the day… you know, taking the dog out, I live in an apartment, it’s late at night, it’s cold, sometimes I don’t want to... I was kind of in a mood. We were walking through the city, stopping at a corner, and an ambulance drove by, sirens blaring. Sometimes—not every time—Iggy will howl at an ambulance. I looked at my dog, and I’m like, “Is she going to do it?” So I howl, to get her to howl. She starts howling. I looked over beside me, and three strangers on the street corner started howling. We all howled together. A mundane shared connection, to me that’s art.
Angela Fama (she/they) is an interdisciplinary artist, creator of the Death Conversation Game, photographer, and musician of mixed european descent currently living and working on the unceded traditional and ancestral territories of the Coast Salish xʷməθkwəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh Nations.
Follow them at IG @angelafama IG @deathconversationgame or on their website www.angelafama.com
