“I knew I wanted to make something on my own” — Augusta Mariano

The actress-director-producer talks about creating her own content.

August Mariano does it all. An actress who has appeared on shows such as FOX’s Raising Hope and NBC’s My Name is Earl, Mariano is now creating her own content. She recently co-created, produced, directed, and starred in It’s a Girl Thing, a half-hour comedy pilot. Below, Mariano shares with me the inside scoop on the struggles and triumphs of creating her own work.

Who are you, and how did you get to where you are today?

I grew up mostly in LA and always knew I wanted to be an actor. Both my parents are directors — my dad writes and directs for TV, and my mom does theater — so I was always around it. Growing up, I begged my parents to let me be a Disney Channel star, and they were like, “absolutely not.” My dad would always say, “you have cameras in your pockets now, and you want to be an actress, make something.” And I was always like, “yeah, yeah, whatever dad.” Then I went to college and got a degree in theater performance and came back to LA, and have been auditioning and working as an actor, but also pretty quickly after coming back I knew I wanted to make something on my own. So that was sort of my path into writing, directing, producing.