Rising Star Kathrine Barnes On The Five Things You Need To Shine In The Entertainment Industry
An Interview With Elana Cohen
Don’t worry about trying to negotiate getting extra and featured work added to IMDb. It doesn’t matter and you won’t want it there in a few years. But, if you do, there are ways of getting it removed if you’re relentless enough. Learned this from a very real friend who lives in Canada and is definitely not me.
As a part of our series about pop culture’s rising stars, we had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Kathrine Barnes.
Kathrine Barnes is an actor and former dancer best known for her highly physical, chameleonic, and experimental screen and stage performances, which have included Chekhovian ingenues, assassins in dark comedies, and, once, a 10-year old demon made out of mud. Her TV & film appearances include the “Queer as Folk” reboot, “Candy”, The Glorias, and Faceless After Dark. She can currently be seen on BET+’s “Average Joe” playing Arina, a Russian assassin dragged out of retirement to hunt down the people who accidentally wronged her former boss. She is a Co-founder & Producer at Vernal & Sere Theatre, a cannoli aficionado, and a lunatic.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?
Certainly: I was born and raised in Rhode Island in a town that has one of the highest concentrations of Italian-Americans in the United States (shoutout to Johnston, which you might know as the hometown of DJ Pauly D). My parents are trained in engineering, architecture, and mathematics, but they’re huge movie buffs and very talented, creative people, so my younger brother and sister and I were dancing, playing sports, and playing instruments about as soon as we were dexterous enough for each. We had some tough losses in the family while I was growing up, but we’ve always been there for each other. Our family is incredibly close.
Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?
There’s SO much, but the thing that’s jumping out at me right now is the first time I saw a Broadway musical. I was 13 years old, and my mom was taking me on one of our NYC trips we’d been doing regularly since I turned 10, but this time we were headed to see Wicked instead of the NYC Ballet. I wanna say it was July 17, 2004 because I’m almost positive I was there the day before Kristen Chenoweth left the show. I had been a huge fan of the soundtrack and was constantly screlting out the power ballads all over Johnston with my friends, but let me tell you: when Idina Menzel got rig-lifted up into the sky for the Act I finale and brought the house down at the end of Defying Gravity, I swear to whatever God you believe in that the chemistry in my brain shifted. I must have been no more than 10–15 rows from the stage, and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, I couldn’t believe what I was FEELING. It was such a consummate sensory overload that I just burst into tears. I don’t know that I had ever cried at art before that point, and it felt primal. It was almost Stendhalian. I have been on a lifelong mission to give that feeling to other people ever since.
Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
I don’t know that this is THE most interesting story, but I’m answering this question from inside a car with 2 of my theatre company partners on the way to the wedding of the other 2, and we are all traumatized by this one. For context, it was 2018 and were in rehearsals for our production of the play 4.48 Psychosis by Sarah Kane, who passed away in 1999 at age 28. Sarah was an absurdist and very funny and also lived at the furthest edges of human darkness, and pests were a common theme in her work. There’s a monologue in 4.48 featuring “ten thousand cockroaches.” I had never seen a cockroach in my life before I started working in Atlanta, and while we were doing that play there, my partners and I were convinced that Sarah’s ghost was sending plagues of insects after us as a poltergeist-like gift (punishment?) for doing her play. She also made us see the number 448 everywhere (still does, actually).
Another thing to know is that, at the time, 3 of my partners lived in the apartment directly above mine, which, if I’m being generous, I’d describe as a dungeony, warehouse-like space with a bed and no bathroom door that I had “renovated” to be “livable” and that we also used for rehearsals. So, we’re in there one day about to start working on 4.48, several months into the process and already fully convinced we were being haunted by the ghost of Sarah Kane, when our director, Sawyer, went upstairs to his apartment to get something. None of us remembers what, because what we downstairs didn’t realize was that he saw a wasp outside his front door, grabbed some spray, and sprayed the crack in the brick exterior from which it came. About 10 minutes passed and Sawyer hadn’t come back, so his then-girlfriend (now-fiancé and, by the time you’re reading this, wife!), Erin, went up to look for him. Another 10 minutes passed and we were just tooling around, so I went upstairs to find them. I remember seeing a few wasps flying around the entryway and not thinking much of it, but when I opened the front door, it looked like the apocalypse had commenced. Apparently, Sawyer spraying the hole had driven an entire colony of wasps out of the brick wall and into his home, and there were HUNDREDS of them zooming around the living room and forming such a thick layer of pestilence that I could barely make out Erin & Sawyer’s horrified faces from behind a set of French doors across the room screaming at me to run through a nearby bedroom door to get to them in the kitchen. None of us had our phones, and the only way out of the apartment was back through the sea of wasps. We were trapped. The details from here are a little foggy, but the next thing I remember was that I somehow ended up in some sort of ski suit / helmet contraption with oven mitts duct-taped to my sleeves and ran into the living room double-fisting insect sprays and say-hello-to-my-little-friending my way through the wasps. After the battle was over and we sifted through the carnage, we definitely counted 448 of them (at least). I was stung 4 times and am now probably in permanent hot water with PETA, but at least Sarah never sent another plague quite as powerful as that one. And our production of the play was even more insane than that experience.
It has been said that 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?
Through a series of very convoluted events (and, importantly, before I got my first agent), I happened to meet one of the executive producers of “Veep” in 2012 when he did a screening of the pilot at his alma mater. I didn’t know anything about anything, but I knew the pilot was awesome and that I was desperate to be on the show. I was SO green that my dumb ass marched right up to this man and asked him how to audition for a show that starred some of the most talented, hilarious, and experienced actors in the business. Shockingly, he gave me his email address and the contact info for the casting director. Nothing came of it, obviously (I never even auditioned for the show during its entire 7-season run and that was absolutely the way it was meant to be), but there’s something so nostalgic about reflecting on the incredibly bold faux pas you made back when you didn’t know any better to be scared of making them. It’s something I think about from time to time when I’m working on some creative problem-solving in my career and need to think outside the confines of what the industry likes to make you think are inviolable rules and standards. But, I will say, I definitely don’t make a habit of emailing casting directors looking for auditions anymore and neither should you.
What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now?
The wall behind my couch in my living room is covered in unhinged post-it notes for 3 films that were planted into my brain as if by the gods, so I’m slowly but surely trying to get them all out onto paper. I think my masterpiece is in there, but right now, the most excitement I’m getting out of that is when I (frequently) forget the post-its are up and I have guests over, and they are subjected to all-caps reminders like “Phil Collins jukebox movie musical but it’s George of the Jungle instead of Tarzan” and “time is an ouroboros.”
You have been blessed with 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?
I don’t think I can say it any better than Jim Carrey did in that commencement address when he reminded graduating students that you can fail doing the thing you think is safe, so you might as well risk failing at the thing you love. I am firmly in the camp where I would rather die regretting doing something than regretting not doing something, and if that resonates with you, you might just need to get out there and scare yourself a little.
We are very interested in diversity in the entertainment industry. Can you share three reasons with our readers about why you think it’s important to have diversity represented in film and television? How can that potentially affect our culture?
Here’s what I’ll say. Taking time to view the world through another person’s eyes and take it as seriously as you would your own experience is the ultimate act of empathy and it is made radically possible by film, TV, and theatre. And I’d argue that an unwillingness or inability to empathize is at the core of political and social oppression and discrimination. People who belong to minority groups are raised in a world where they are constantly subjected to art made by dominant groups featuring the stories of dominant groups, and they are thus trained to empathize with members of those dominant groups by default. When we don’t meaningfully represent people of all groups and experiences in media, we rob folks (especially those who don’t often interact with people from whom they are different) of the opportunity to expand their scope of empathy, understanding, and tools to conceive of the world in ways that make it safer and more equitable for everyone. We also rob members of underrepresented groups of the dignity and sociopolitical benefits of seeing themselves meaningfully represented that make them have easier access to robustly conceptualizing their own humanity.
The bottom line is that after the entertainment industry’s history of actively stifling diversity, inclusion, and representation, prioritizing those things shouldn’t even be a question and we’re kidding ourselves if we think we’ve achieved the moral right to disregard them.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why? Please share a story or example for each.
“I can do that” is not the same thing as “I can create that.” I think that this was a necessary step in my journey, but I spent SO much time worshipping and, hence, imitating other actors. Screen legends were my earliest and most powerful teachers, but they alone couldn’t make me discover what kind of unique artistry I had to contribute to the world. I remember one time doing a Girl, Interrupted monologue in an acting class and the teacher saying: “that was a great Angelina Jolie impression, what else ya got?” I was mortified, but it was formative.
Just because your ambition is to have a career where you never retire and a major franchise pays all your bills, you should still open a savings account and a Roth IRA and put money into both regularly. That being said, spend money on travel. I don’t have any cute stories for this one, I just barely have any savings and I basically spend all of what I do take home on Delta flights. But I’m a better actor for not sacrificing seeing the world and my loved ones when I want to.
Actively working on your mental health will not make you lose your edge.
Don’t worry about trying to negotiate getting extra and featured work added to IMDb. It doesn’t matter and you won’t want it there in a few years. But, if you do, there are ways of getting it removed if you’re relentless enough. Learned this from a very real friend who lives in Canada and is definitely not me.
Live your life like you’re Céline Dion: unspeakably talented, rigorously committed, snapped into the present moment, exploding with self-esteem, and publicly insane. (My oldest and dearest friends and I are completely, unironically obsessed with her. 6 of us once went on a vacation where all we did was sit in our 1-bed hotel room in Andover, MA and watch her DVD on repeat because we couldn’t be convinced that she was a human being and not some sort of wizard alien diva sent here to teach us all how to be happy.)
Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?
Start paying attention to how your intuition manifests for you, and learn to practice differentiating between discomfort because you should keep going and discomfort because you should stop. Develop and exercise your boundaries. Say no when it’s best for you. Recognize that sometimes you have to make a decision about what’s best for you in the moment and you might be wrong, and that’s ok. Develop patience and empathy for the tough little guy that is your ego, but don’t always let it call the shots. Start noticing where tension and anxiety live in your body. Get massages. And for the love of Céline Dion, don’t start a theatre company.
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? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
Therapy for everyone starting in childhood and fully covered under universal healthcare.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
My dad once bought me a t-shirt that says “I’m confident my last words will be ‘well shit, that didn’t work.’” I think that’s a pretty good encapsulation of one of my major philosophies. The people closest to me have watched me MacGyver enough robot solutions for theatrical fx, tinker with so many construction problems, and muscle my way through enough creative problem-solving in my relationships and my artistic career to know that if I’m gonna fail, I’m going out in a blaze of glory having done everything possible to claw my way to a win.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. :-)
My very real answer to this is, of course, Céline Dion. I want to pepper her with questions about her voice and her life for hours, but mostly, I think it would be life-changing to watch her order off of a Waffle House menu.
How can our readers follow you online?
When I’m in promo mode for screen or stage projects, you can find me tooling around on Instagram at @kathrinebarnes or at kathrinebarnes.com. Otherwise, I’ll be hiding in some corner of the world, probably swinging from a lighting grid in a theatre.
This was very meaningful, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!
