Inspirational Women In Hollywood: How Marine George of ‘ People Who Matter Productions’ Is Helping To Shake Up The Entertainment Industry

An Interview With Elana Cohen

Take some advice, not all: I tend to be frustrated by the amount of random advice I receive that is not always helpful. True great advice is rare and precious.

As a part of our series about Inspirational Women In Hollywood, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Marine George.

Born on July 27th, 1989, Marine GEORGE is a French artist based in Los Angeles.

Prior to her artistic career, Marine GEORGE studied Economics and Social Sciences at the Ecole Normale Superieure Paris Saclay (ex-ENS Cachan) and at Paris I — La Sorbonne University. She holds a Master’s Degree in Soiology and a Master’s Degree in Economics. After graduating, Marine worked for the French Embassy to the State of Qatar from 2014 to 2015, where she held the position of Economic Affairs Officer, and for the company Thales Group from 2015 to 2017, where she held the position of Strategy & Business Development Analyst.

In 2017, she took a leap of faith and decided to follow her life-long dream of becoming an actress. She first moved to South Africa where she was cast in the show Othello: A Woman’s Story and where she also wrote and produced her upcoming webseries Wanderlost. In 2018, she moved to the United States to follow two acting programs, UCLA’s Professional Program in Acting, and Alex Taylor’s Meisner Training.

Parallel to this, Marine GEORGE was seen in several short and feature films from across the globe, starring in Fried Barry, a South African production by Ryan Kruger released in 2021 on several platforms including Shudder or Amazon Prime. She also held the lead role in Faces by Bobby Castro, currently in post-production. Additionally, Marine GEORGE worked as a background actress in the movie Joker 2, by Philipp Todd. She eventually released Wanderlost on Amazon Prime Video in 2023 and is currently promoting the show that she wrote, produced and starred in.

Marine’s past experiences show that she is not only a proficient actress, but also a multi-talented person who will benefit to the United States of America by bringing creativity, talent and energy, participating in the American dream and providing an international outlook on an already boilant creative industry.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?

I’d love to. I grew up in Paris, France, the city of Love! My upbringing was fairly traditional but open-minded and my family made us travel quite a bit, which I believe kindled an interest for traveling and anything international.

As a kid, I acted in a bunch of plays. I was a shy kid away from school but loved the stage where I thrived. I abandoned this path for a while because it wasn’t what I was “supposed” to do and I wasn’t mature enough to make my own decisions, but eventually it’s this childhood dream that stood by.

Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

Growing up privileged, I never really knew what it meant to fight or struggle to get something. By far what’s been the most interesting for me has been to find creativity and resilience within me. Thriving in the United States when you are a beginner actor immigrant and only have an artist’s visa is tough, especially during the COVID times where I was not able to fly back home. All these experiences build a fortitude I’m hoping to carry for the rest of my life.

It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I remember my first short film, A Journey to from Love, by the Doha Film Institute. I hadn’t taken acting classes in 20 years and I don’t think I was any good, luckily I had a small part. I was supposed to be a symbolic apparition which smiles fully and brings warmth to the room. Looking back, I think I looked like a goat!

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

I’ve been lucky enough to have some wonderful acting teachers who really helped me along the path, but the one I’m thinking about right now is my sister. She’s always by my side even though we live thousands of miles apart… I’m extremely grateful for her presence and her wisdom.

You have been blessed with great success in a career path that can be challenging. Do you have any words of advice for others who may want to embark on this career path, but seem daunted by the prospect of failure?

Thanks a lot! It’s a tough industry and I’d recommend following my path, as in making your own project. It’s an era where you’re nobody until you’re somebody, and what better way to get there than to take the matter into your own hands?

Every industry iterates and seeks improvement. What changes would you like to see in the industry going forward?

I believe there’s a big gate keeping problem — and understandably. It’s almost impossible to come up with a new project and be recognized without having some prior connections. So I’d love to see an effort made for decision-makers to take a specific look at young blood. Then again, there are time and resources constraints.

You have such impressive work. What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? Where do you see yourself heading from here?

Thank you so much. Right now, the big deal is the promotion of my webseries Wanderlost and setting it up for season 2. I’d also love to create new content that’s not necessarily as comedic, and of course acting in wonderful films from all over the world!

We are very interested in looking at diversity in the entertainment industry. Can you share three reasons with our readers why you think it’s important to have diversity represented in film and television? How can that potentially affect our culture and our youth growing up today?

I live in Los Angeles, which is not the most diverse place I’ve lived in but by far the most integrated. And let me tell you one thing, there is nothing more precious than being in the same room as other people from different genders, ethnicities, etc. and getting along. If any part of you believes in One Love One World, then this is the future.

What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why? Please share a story or example for each.

• Don’t underestimate the power of hard work: I found the distributor of my webseries after sending 1000 cold emails. Now, we’re on Amazon! It works.
• The road is long: I just finished Wanderlost five years after starting this project. Granted, COVID didn’t help, but still…
• Don’t be afraid of solitude: it is a long, steep road, especially since I left a very gratifying career for the arts, and I do feel lonely on this path.
• Take some advice, not all: I tend to be frustrated by the amount of random advice I receive that is not always helpful. True great advice is rare and precious.
• Make connections: that might be the most important one and the one I underestimated the most… It’s crucial if you want to win.

Can you share with our readers any self-care routines, practices or treatments that you do to help your body, mind or heart to thrive? Please share a story for each one if you can.

YOLO! That’s my mantra. If you like it, self-care has great virtues, however I think society, and this industry in particular puts too much pressure on having a perfect body and a perfect skin, on being perfect overall. And for my own mental health, I need to be able to feel free, to feel like it’s ok not to be perfect. I gained a lot of weight for medical reasons and I had to accept that. It’s not easy but it was a good wake-up call and taught me to look a little beyond when it comes to judging people for their health habits.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Marianne Williamson has a great one, which was wrongly attributed to no other than Nelson Mandela. It goes something along the lines of: “it is not darkness that we fear but light, the tremendous light within us”. Russian novelist Dostoievski also said: “beauty will save the world”, I love this one.

You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

I don’t know if I have that much influence yet but I’m trying to think back on things that structured my values and come up with something. It’s a work I’ve been doing lately, it’s very demanding and rewarding. I believe there’s a general laziness surrounding us, coming from difficult work conditions, or from the post-COVID era. But it is up to us to go by the values our parents and grandparents taught us. People don’t like to look back at the past, but I think it is chic!

Is there a person in the world whom you would love to have lunch with, and why? Maybe we can tag them and see what happens!

Oh my… How about Denzel Washington?

Are you on social media? How can our readers follow you online?

I am on social media: www.instagram.com/marineauxetatsunis . I also highly recommend checking my webseries social: www.instagram.com/wanderlost.tv .

This was so informative, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!