Q&A: Djouliet Amara in Her Feels - The Actress Weighs in On Practicing Love for Characters and for Herself
DJOULIET AMARA WANTS YOU TO FEEL SOMETHING - The dancer, actor and all-around creative has spent her life pursuing a feeling, or rather, all of them. Amara’s life is marked by moments of emotion– curiosity over strangers, exuberance in movement, or a longing for shared experience. Each informs Amara’s experience of herself and the worlds of the characters she embodies.
Growing up, Amara’s world was small. From a small town in Winnipeg, Canada, Amara learned to create characters of herself. Moving to New York to pursue dancing, Amara embraced newness, forging new relationships with herself and the world around her from a place of genuine feeling and connection.
Now, Amara rewrites moments in time, proudly playing the queer roles she wishes she had seen on screen as a kid. In each new project, Amara meets her characters with love, creating worlds for them outside of the script. Introduced to a whole new realm of feeling, Amara explores sensations outside of herself, spending time in the minds and hearts of each character she plays.
Having just entered the acting world in 2020, Amara has already landed roles on Riverdale, Devil in Ohio, The Porter and her upcoming project Superman and Lois–each offering a new access point to dive into all of the sensations that make us human.
Read below to get in your feels with Djouliet Amara.
LUNA: What projects are you working on now?
AMARA: So I just wrapped Devil in Ohio last week. That one was a fucking amazing experience, like working with Daria Polatin, who's like an amazing playwright and writer. She was the showrunner of our show, and also the writer of the novel that our show was based off of. It was just like, so amazing. And it was so cool to meet all these, I don't know, talented people on this big Netflix project. And we have this amazing producer Rachel. And like, it was just such a good crew. It was just so fun. I've just met a few of my castmates for this next show that I'm doing, called Superman and Lois. I'm just super, super stoked. Like, I wish I could say more about it. I can't say anything, because like, the fan base is super on it, trying to figure the details out. Yeah, I can't say anything. But it’s good. It's a good one. It's cool. I'm really stoked to be a part of that story.
LUNA: Tell me a bit about your creative journey.
AMARA: My comfort has always been in creating movement because I trained for so long as a mover. I spent my whole life since I was like seven years old dancing. It’s something that I'm really grounded and really confident in— like, I know, at the end of the day, if there's one thing I can do, I can fucking dance.
Right now, I'm kind of curious about different music too. Like, I know probably everybody says this, but I just love it so much. I have this one friend who has this super epic recording studio in her basement. And like, we were just fucking around the other day. And just creating whatever. I just like to create stuff, even if it's not something that the world will see. It kind of helps me grow in other areas of the arts, like creating different beats and rhythms and whatever seriously helps me with my creative flow when I'm coming up with choreography.
But for acting, acting is a really interesting one because it's my new love. It’s a new, very fresh thing to me. I've only been doing it for two years. As an actor that's kind of growing as I go, I go along and gain these new experiences. And I'm learning also how not to judge myself and other people through acting as well. Because when you're becoming a character you can't be judging who you're playing from your perspective. You can come up with what you would think of them, but you can't let that affect the way that you play. So it's really interesting if you're playing someone that, say, you don't like or you don't like that choice they made. You have to figure out why they made that choice. You know, it's not about you.
LUNA: What was the biggest challenge in moving from dance to acting?
AMARA: Imposter syndrome, huge imposter syndrome. When I first started I was like “how are all these things happening to me?” I never went to acting school. I'm just eating up these words and really trying to exist as this human and just trying to be really honest. And I was like, “is that it? Is that like all I have to do? Like really?” It really feels funny sometimes.
LUNA: Having come into acting on your own, what practices do you use to develop characters?
AMARA: I've always been really into people watching and I've always been a lover of human beings. I'm such a lover. Always yearning, always wistful, like my Spotify wrapped says! I just really, like, really spent my whole life being a people person. I examine people and love learning their quirks. And I feel like what works for me is sometimes, I'll book a character or audition for a character, and I'll read the breakdown, and for me, I think like, “Oh my god, this person reminds me of this person.” And then sometimes I'm able to just embody the person that that character reminds me of. It becomes that person that I've either met in my life or that I've known or it’s pieces of a few different people. And for me, that's what works easiest for me, because I remember the feelings that I had with those people. It's really interesting, I have channeled like, an ex for a role before and I booked it.
LUNA: How do you find ways to love each character, even when you might disagree with them?
AMARA: I like to spend a lot of time with them before I play them. By that I mean, like writing things down in a notebook that I think that they would write, or a little backstory to their life. And playlists. I make a lot of playlists about their brains. For this new character I'm playing in Superman and Lois, I was so excited to get started on her playlist. It’s all about her brain and I literally titled it like “her name” and “brain”. I don't even know if I'm allowed to say her name because of how excited the fanbase is. I was super nervous and made it private so fast on Spotify in case anyone that watches the show ended up finding it and got me fired! Okay, I love them. I just think it's so funny.
LUNA: Do you feel like, after a project, pieces of a character stay with you?
AMARA: Yeah, sometimes. Sometimes for sure. I was working on a project called The Porter this summer. That's coming out in February to CBC and BET+. It was kind of traumatizing sometimes when I came home from work because we were dealing with a lot of issues on race. It was a period piece about being Black in the 1920s. We dealt with colorism and we reenacted so many things that are so painful to live through. And there were so many things that my character did that were, you know, not things Djouliet Amara would do. Especially not in this day and age or ever. But you know, you give grace to that character and realize they always have a reason for why they're doing something, even if it is the wrong thing to you.
LUNA: Are there characters you feel more connected to, is it different to play them?
AMARA: I’ve gotten to play a lot of queer roles in the past, which is great for representation, and is always fun. And what's most fun about it it is that for a lot of these roles I get to be transported back to high school and live as a queer person. I wasn’t out in high school, so it’s this huge re-do. Like, I never went to prom, but in one of these projects, I got a prom and a queer little date. And in Seance, I got to live my best private school queer dream. It's just really funny to exist as these humans that I would have either crushed on or wished I was back then. And now I kind of get paid to literally just be all of the people that I've ever had a crush on ever.
LUNA: What were you like in high school?
AMARA: I feel like I was very different than I am now. But also very much the same. Like, Djouliet has always been inside of Djouliet. Like, DJ has always been inside of DJ. But I was super Type A. I was kind of nervous to be myself, like fully. I was always artistic and I had all these different things that I wanted to do. I felt like my small town was very limiting for me. People's lack of self-expression around me was kind of limiting for me because I felt scared to fully exist as myself. I was even self-conscious about my hair and I would always straighten it or put it up, not wanting it to look too different. Whereas now I’m often in like a fro-hawk or have my hair out or like have these little buns or whatever. I was just very nervous to be me. And I was really like, really, cosplaying as straight.
LUNA: So what would you say to your high school self now, or any other young queer creatives?
AMARA: Don't judge other people or yourself too harshly? Like coming into this creative world… just exist. Don't be so hard on yourself. I have a bunch of friends who are so so hard on themselves about, you know, wanting to be the best this and the best that and like, it's amazing to yearn to strive to be the best version of yourself. But that all comes with the lessons you learn and the work you put in and just existing. Just exist man, just do it, go for it. Don't be afraid. Don't feel like you have to do things to please everybody else. That's an important one. I feel like at the beginning of my career, when I was like, 18, I was very much walking on eggshells around everyone trying to be this perfect version of whatever. And now I'm honestly making a lot of stuff up as I go along. But that's what works best for me. That's really what works best for me.
LUNA: When do you feel at your best creatively?
AMARA: Honestly, for me, I really feel at my best when I'm spiritually grounded and connected to the universe, connected to God, and creating with the energy around me. When I feel connected to my spirit— that's when I feel my best. And that's when I feel like everything is working out for me. That's when I feel safe to take risks and, maybe even make mistakes. I don't even think there's such a thing as making mistakes. I think you just take risks or you make choices. And then things happen based on those choices. I've made a lot of mistakes, but it's led me to this point. So were they really mistakes? I'm so happy I made all of those choices. I'm so happy I've been through so many of life’s painful moments. It's all led me to this point.
LUNA: So, you’ve been performing in different ways your whole life– what do you hope people feel when they watch you?
AMARA: I don’t want them to feel anything specifically. I just want them to feel something, whatever that may be. I want them to learn. That’s the thing I'm learning, actually. You can't be like, “Oh, I want everyone to love me.” Not everyone's going to love you. There’s gonna be people who hate some of your characters and love others, but you’re part of these gigantic stories. Your characters are moving along entire storylines that are so much bigger than you and them. At the end of the day, I think what's important is that every single character makes someone feel something or some type of way.
What I hope is that people learn. Depending on the perspective they're watching from and whatever their views may be, I hope that people learn a bit about these characters’ experiences and give them the same grace and compassion that I hope we all are learning to give ourselves.
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