How Brit Marling Forged Her Acting Career

Women in Hollywood face many casting challenges. For many young female actors looking to break into the industry, the roles offered are often typecast with girlfriend and victim roles. Brit Marling had already left a career for acting, and wanted her presence on screen to carry weight. This meant she had to create these characters herself.

From Georgetown to Los Angeles

Brit Marling’s road towards her acting career began a far cry from Hollywood. While studying at (and eventually graduating from) Georgetown with a Major in Economics, Marling met two future directors, Mike Cahill and Zal Batmanglij, whom she would work closely alongside to create the films that would shape her blossoming career.

After interning for a summer at Goldman Sachs as an analyst, Marling turned down their job offer, and opted for the road less traveled. She left the United States, and moved to Cuba with Mike Cahill, where the pair co-directed and co-wrote Boxers and Ballerinas, a film exploring the US-Cuba conflict by profiling boxers and ballerinas in Havana, Santiago de Cuba and Miami.

After being lauded for her involvement in the project, Brit Marling set her sights on Hollywood. The pair’s move to Los Angeles was a rocky one, with the actor admitting the couple survived on a diet of lentils.

Marling eventually joined Batmanglij in a life of freeganism, which involved freezing their bank accounts for 10 weeks, sleeping outside, hopping trains to travel and eating from trash bins, to find meaning in their lives.

Having a hand in creating her own roles

After rejecting scripts of female characters portrayed as largely helpless victims, Marling co-wrote The Sound Of My Voice and Another Earth with Batmanglij and Cahill, respectively, to co-write, co-produce and star in both films. Both pictures opened at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, a first for a female writer and actress.

Finding success through creative filmmaking

After winning four cinematic awards for her work in Another Earth and Boxers and Ballerinas, and thanks to the buzz at Sundance, Marling was approached by Robert Redford to star alongside himself, Susan Sarandon, Terrence Howard and Stanley Tucci in the political thriller The Company You Keep.

After wrapping Company, Marling returned to her longtime collaborator Zal Batmanglij, to co-write and star in The East, which was inspired by their time living off the grid as freegans. The East was the first of her personal projects to feature additional star power, with her sharing screen time with Alexander Skarsgård and Ellen Page.

After The East, Marling teamed up again with Mike Cahill to star in I Origins, a drama about a molecular biologist making a startling discovery involving human eyes, which debuted at Sundance in 2014.

Pilot bidding wars

After accepting roles written by others, Marling and Batmanglij joined forces again, to create The OA, which sparked a bidding war that Netflix eventually won. After working together to create such intimate films as The Sound Of My Voice and The East, anticipation for their new drama is high. Netflix’s VP of Original Content champions their creative voices as “uniquely captivating”, though has kept all pilot details under wraps.

The OA joins heavy hitters House of Cards, Orange Is The New Black, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Sense8 and Peaky Blinders in the Netflix Originals lineup in 2016.

Inspiration for unique actors

Brit Marling followed her creative instincts, despite them taking her far from a path of safety. She abandoned her educational trajectory in economics, as she was truly sure that this was not the right course of action for herself, and her career.

“As a kid, I was going to the cinema and not seeing the type of women I saw every day in my own life. I think about what a struggle it is to be a young girl in this world, and it makes me determined to play interesting women.”

Despite extreme challenges early in her career, Marling persevered and held out for roles that mattered to her, as an actor. Rejecting roles that don’t match with your personal career vision is a risky move, though she shows that in certain situations, unique actors can truly forge a career for themselves that they can be proud of.

For women and other minorities in the film industry, this belief in yourself is crucial. While Hollywood may be lacking in diversity now, if you and other actors work with progressive and creative directors, your work could be the incentive for Big Hollywood to take the diversification movement seriously, and finance projects that continue to challenge the current status quo.

Finding the roles you’re being offered aren’t matching your values or stoking your creativity? Exploring the other side of production to create your own roles may be an option for you. Creating a short film, web series, documentary or even YouTube videos could be the content that drives your personal marketing, and propels you into the hands of your next casting director.

Know thyself, invest in your creativity and watch your career develop.

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