About Art: Ana Silva
About Art: A place where artists talk about art. Interviews with actors, comedians, writers, and visual artists discuss what inspires them, the truth about their industries, and what they hope to achieve.
Television and film are nothing without the writers and the actors bringing these stories to life and they deserve a fair, well-paying, deal without the scary threat of being replaced by AI. About Art stands with WGA and SAG-AFTRA.
About Art’s interview with writer-actress, Ana Silva.
Ana Silva is a talented multi-hyphenate. She is a writer, an actress of both screen and stage, who was recently in the Paramount in Aurora’s production of School of Rock and will be understudying the world premiere of a home what howls: or the house that was ravine at Steppenwolf Theatre Company. I first met her when she was my teacher at The Second City. You can follow her on instagram @theanasilvashow or on her website.
This interview has been condensed for clarity (and without first-gen children of immigrant rants about brown parents’ wishes for all their children to become doctors and lawyers).
About Art: When did you realize you were a storyteller?
Ana Silva: I must’ve been very young. I was always telling stories and they were very boring. People would tell me that, so I started exaggerating. My dad does the same thing. He’s basically the dad in Big Fish and I learned from him. Eventually, I told better stories because my life got more interesting and I learned how to properly tell one.
About Art: What medium do you primarily work in (what form(s) does your storytelling usually take)?
Ana Silva: I’m an actor. I’m a singer. I’m a comedian. I mostly do stage theatre right now and I write for television and sketch [comedy]. I’m a multi-hyphenate. I knew I was born to be a performer. Writing has taken longer to learn how to do well. Because I’m not being handed roles left and right, I have to forge my own path, but acting is easier for me.
About Art: What drew you to your art?
Ana Silva: I remember being five years old and seeing the stage production of Aladdin at the high school. I was like “I have to do that” and it was tough because we didn’t have money.
If I was lucky enough to get a scholarship to a summer camp, I would act in the shows there. I would take theatre classes that were offered in school — I was all over that. It wasn’t until I was getting ready to go to college that I was like “Aw, man, I gotta figure out how to do this for the rest of my life”. I went to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival summer seminar for high school juniors and they said “If you would be content doing something else, do that”. I always think about that. When I am fully in my work, it’s not me. It’s that feeling of flow and I am serving something higher than myself. I don’t feel that when I’m being an administrative assistant. That feeling of collaboration, creativity, and community is addicting. I drank the Kool-Aid.
I got into writing more in college because people were like “You have to write for yourself” and it was how I could move myself forward. Now, I write pilots with myself in mind as the lead. Performing comes easier and writing is a different skill.
About Art: What do you wish you had known before you started this journey?
Ana Silva: I wish I could tell my younger self “You don’t have to change everything about yourself just because there are limited-minded people out there, and that you would find people who see you as you are, and that those are the people you will want to work anyway.”
My favorite quote is from Arlan Hamilton who went from being unhoused to funding multi-million dollar [venture capital] deals. I love her. She says, “You have to be yourself so that the people looking for you can find you”.
Finding a way to be okay with your authenticity and sticking to your own path instead of expecting someone else’s path to work for you. I wish I’d known that.
About Art: What are you glad you didn’t know?
Ana Silva: When I started glad I didn’t know how judgmental people are about the work you do and how you are perceived. I do self-tape after self-tape after self-tape and you never know why you don’t book something. And for me, disaster fantasizing is my favorite sport and I’m sitting there thinking “These casting directors think I’m ugly” “These casting directors think I’m untalented” “These casting directors are laughing at the tape I’m sending in.” Meanwhile, I’m letting those insecurities lead the choices I’m making instead of doing what I want to do.
Now, I wish I didn’t know the external judgment that goes into the work I do. I knew it was judgmental in a different way. Like, people like me weren’t on stage or TV unless they were in a show called Ugly Betty, which doesn’t make you feel great about yourself. That part I knew. The judgement from your peers as well as casting I didn’t know. I love constructive criticism. When it’s criticism about me as a human, it’s really hard to use that as an indicator for your career.
I was so brainwashed into thinking that I was a character actor, and improv saved my life by teaching me I could be anything. Now, I’m going into auditions as the love interest or the ingenue when I was told I would never be that in school.
About Art: What makes you passionate about your art?
Ana Silva: I really care about human connection and empathy and I feel like storytelling, theater, TV and film are really great ways for being able to access and learn empathy. Also, I know there will be little girls watching what I do and be inspired by me and it’s so important to see yourself in the art you consume.
About Art: An artist’s journey can be a lonely one. How did you find support and collaborators to keep going and not give up?
Ana Silva: It goes back to that “Be yourself so that the people who are looking for you can find you”. I found my people, artistically and creatively, when I came to Chicago. I had to go through a lot of losing my identity and figuring out who I was to find people who helped me become the person I always wanted to be. It’s important to focus on your genuine self and create work that is authentic and honest to you. Surrounding yourself with people who are in the same boat that you are in is helpful in two ways.
There is this great Ira Glass quote about how your taste will lead you and as you keep working hard enough your taste and your ability will be the same. Working with people on the same level, people can help guide each other to that goal. Also, the work you are gonna get is from the people around you in your community.
How do I not give up? I am so stubborn and want to prove my dad wrong. He didn’t come to this country for me to be an artist.* He came for me to be a lawyer or a doctor. My driving force is achievement and we learn as immigrant children that that is how we have to define our worth.
About Art: What is your ultimate goal? What does “success” look like to you?
Ana Silva: My ultimate goal is to run my own production company and make money off of my friends. Basically, I want to do what Adam Sandler did where I fund my friends’ art. That’s what separates poor artists from rich artists: someone giving them money.
For me, the version of success I was striving towards was very unhealthy and I’m working to redefine it because so much of it is out of my control. For a long time I wanted to be on the Main Stage at Second City, and when I was the closest I’d ever been, the world ended. It was very unhealthy for me. Getting too stuck on a goal that has more to do with luck than skill or talent means you can lose your identity if you don’t get it. I want to define success in terms of tangible things that I can achieve.
I can focus on getting better at auditioning to help myself land something. I can’t control if someone will make my television scripts, but I can control my output and how much I write. You can’t attribute worth to yourself based on those external things.
About Art: What would you like to change about your industry?
Ana Silva: I would love to change money dictating art. I would love artists to have funding without the pressure to create high returns so they can feel free to create. The best art is made by people who have security and don’t have to constantly worry about selling tickets.
I am so worried about survival that I can’t do my best work. It’s heartbreaking.
About Art: Do you feel your journey would be easier or harder if the industry was more inclusive?
Ana Silva: I think it would be easier. I wouldn’t have to walk into a room and wonder why I was the only brown person in there. I wouldn’t have to worry about being five sizes bigger than the other ingenue they called in. I wouldn’t have to think about how limited I am in a casting breakdown if there were more things available for everyone.
About Art: How do you use your art to affect change?
Ana Silva: I want people to feel seen and understood. I want people to access their empathy and joy. I approach teaching the same way I approach the work that I do. I want people to feel safe, to let go of that fear, of self-consciousness and judgment so that they can play. When people get too serious about improv, I tell my classes, we’re literally just playing make-believe and having fun.
About Art: What does an artist need most to make really good art? Passion? Talent? Something else?
Ana Silva: Financial security? I’m kidding… kinda. But dedication to keep working to get better. Anyone can be talented or passionate but it’s that extra step to turn your art into a craft. Your 10,000 hours. Also, really good art is very subjective. I feel like every artist has their own definition of what their best art would be.
It allows you to put that ego aside and take the note.
To me, what do I need to make my best work? It needs to be something that is honest and vulnerable that brings me joy. Something I can make purely because I love it and not because I need to fill in some box or some shit. Because it makes me happy and I like it.
About Art: What are you working on next?
Ana Silva: I am working on a couple of things. I am doing School of Rock at Paramount in Aurora. For my writing, I just finished editing my second pilot before sending it out for fellowships and contests.
It’s interesting having this conversation with you about what I need to make the art I want to make, I have been wanting to write a romcom for a really long time. Just talking to you now, maybe I want to start writing a screenplay. So, that may be in the works.
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*Silva’s father immigrated from Brazil to the United States.
