Check out our interview with SyFy’s “Van Helsing” actress Briana Skye.
Briana has landed roles in numerous projects including Netflix’s Dangerous Lies, The CW’s Batwoman and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, SyFy’s The Magicians, and of course Van Helsing. Briana also works as an international model and has been published in Palm Springs Life Magazine, Cielo Magazine, and Paper Magazine to name a few.
Follow Briana @xxbrianaskye
Hi Briana, please tell us a little about you.
Hi, I’m Briana Skye and I’m kind of a weird artist who wishes she was a cowboy.
Describe yourself in 3 words?
Fiery. Dark. Wild.
How did you get started into acting?
When I was eight years old I played Rumpleteazer in Cats. Even after the play, I kept wearing my rhinestone collar necklace to school and I would meow at kids. Pretty sure I just liked the attention but it also made me fall in love with acting and the idea of pretending to be someone else. After graduating high school in 2009, I ended up pursuing a career in modeling, which led me to travel and live internationally. For me, modeling was about conveying emotions and embodying different personas. I didn’t realize it at the time but it was really storytelling that fascinated me and ultimately made me return to acting. After super long tragic love stories, I strangely ended up in Vancouver, B.C. and started my acting career in 2015.
How has this changed your life?
I found my passion and the reason for which I feel I exist; to create.
What is the best and worst part of being an actress?
When it’s the best, it’s the f*cking best. When it’s the worst, it’s the absolute f*cking worst. Acting and being on set is intoxicating. It’s this unexplainable euphoric feeling that encompasses my entire being. It has always been the artistic collaboration that really makes me jazzed. Getting all these super creative souls together to make something come alive… that’s just magical to me. I suppose the worst thing is to come back to a sense of reality after shooting. On set everything is super heightened. It kind of feels like an outer body experience and that makes me never want to come back down to Earth. If it were up to me, I would just live in fantasy.
Tell us about your work in SyFy’s “Van Helsing” and about your role as Mira?
Booking a recurring role on Van Helsing has been one of my favorite experiences in my career so far. I can’t say enough about how incredibly cool the cast and crew of this show is. Mira is very special to me. I feel like this role emulated a lot of what I was going through at the time. She is this incredibly powerful vampire who has lived her life for centuries in the Sisterhood. After turning back into a human, Mira finds herself extremely vulnerable. Imagine living most of your existence as a vampire and with one bite losing your power and not really having a real recollection of the life you lived before. Mira is a mirror to me of the duality of embracing the opposing forces that exist in each and every one of us, being powerful and vulnerable; being strong and delicate.
How do you prepare for a role?
To be honest, it’s all a very different process for me. There is really nothing that can prepare you for being a vampire [laughs], but with other roles it just depends on what is needed and doing my research for that character. It’s about finding myself in the character and connecting to it so that I can dig deep into telling their story.
What other projects have you been a part of?
I had the pleasure of working on Batwoman with Ruby Rose and she was dope. I think superhero s*it is really cool. It was neat to watch her stunt double get suspended as high as the buildings and fly down to rescue me in my scene. I also worked on DC Legends of Tomorrow, which is a really fun time traveling show of superheroes and villains. My character Sil is this super dark horse, misunderstood weird artist, who kind of looks and acts like Wednesday Addams but deep down really just wants friends; so she oddly joins a sorority. Sil reminded me a lot of myself.
What kind of roles do you like or would like to play and why?
I love fantasy. I’d love to play anything non-human – the more mythical the better. I’m really interested in dark complex characters – the really weird ones with a hard edge. I want to play a character like Uma Thurman in Kill Bill. Be a character like Margot Tenenbaum in a Wes Anderson Film. My dream is to be Catwoman. You figure me out.
What is the most rewarding part of your work?
Creating with other artists.
What’s your advice for the newer actresses?
Be and own you. You’re the only one like you that exists. The most beautiful and interesting thing to me is someone who owns their power. It’s that perfect place where you exude confidence from loving yourself but also being entirely vulnerable and allowing yourself to let go to get to that place of being raw and exposed. That’s where you allow your truth to bleed into your work and where the magic is. And whatever you do, don’t get a damn ego. That is nauseating.
What would say are the greatest lessons you learned so far in this business?
Don’t be so critical of yourself and don’t be an asshole. There’s nothing more harmful to yourself than comparison and there’s nothing more unappealing than acting like a God. Work hard, be humble, and have fun.
How would your best friend describe you?
My best friend and I call each other bunny. She thinks I’m the fluffiest in all the land and I think she’s the cutest. She’s always looked at me as a wild free spirit. She loves my dry and sarcastic personality, and finds my self-deprecating dark humor amusing. She tells me she loves my artistic expression, my acting, poetry and paintings. I’ve always been her favorite muse to photograph because she thinks I’m really unique and like a chameleon. In her eyes, I’m someone who can empathize with any human and she admires how hard I love.
What’s next for Briana Skye in 2021?
Stay tuned folks. ;p
How would you explain your fashion style?
It’s all about my mood. I love vintage and incorporating unique pieces into all my outfits. But then I’ll go days wearing my beat up Harley Davidson leather jacket with ripped jeans, where I look questionably disheveled. I recently bought a pair of limited edition platform Hello Kitty x Doc Martens and I pretty much have been living in them ever since.
What is your own definition of happiness?
Naked with the sunbeams kissing my cheeks.
If you could meet someone living or dead, who would it be and why?
The King and my first love, Elvis Presley.
Best advice ever given?
Live your f*cking life. <3
Do you support any charity?
Mental Health is extremely important to me. I suffer from severe depression; which runs in my family. Our society has created a bad stigma around mental health. This expectation of perfection. This fallacy where sadness should be suppressed. Being taught that boys and men shouldn’t cry, and that girls and women are wildly emotional when they do. This must stop. We are human. Showing vulnerability does not make us weak. It makes us fearless. Feeling is the very thing that connects us all to one another and that’s so beautiful. I just want anyone who doesn’t feel seen to know: You’re not alone and you’re so loved. I’m also such an advocate of therapy. I think therapy is healing for everyone. Let’s normalize therapy.
Where do you see yourself and your career in 5 years from now?
Living in Los Angeles, acting wherever TV and film takes me, and living part time in Europe. Spending a lot of days in the sun on a yacht when I’m not working.
Favorite song? Why?
I’m pretty eccentric with my taste in music. It’s really all over the place, which certainly changes with my mood. But there’s something about I’m On Fire by Bruce Springsteen that just really gets me. I also live with Lana on repeat. Nothing makes my heart smile and break at the same time. Currently it’s her new album Chemtrails over the Country Club – specifically the song White Dress.
What do you think of Social Media?
It’s a love hate kinda relationship. It can be so beautiful but also so soul sucking. It’s one of those double edge swords to me, especially working in this industry. I think it’s a cool way of connecting with other people and sharing different aspects of yourself and your art. It allows you to see a glimpse into the minds and lives of other humans, but as soon as it becomes something you start comparing yourself to, then I think that’s where the real danger comes in and it can start to cause a lot of harm to your mental health.
Where can we follow you?
IG: @xxbrianaskye
Book: Just Kids by Patti Smith and every poem ever by Pablo Neruda.
Quote: Love and be loved.
Movie: Ugh this is hard, Buffalo ’66 because Christina Ricci is my favorite.
TV Series: The Sopranos, The Office, and most recently I loved the aesthetic of Euphoria.
Favorite Food: Italian. Forever.
Travel Destination: The world, let’s go playboy. But seriously, I love traveling. Italy is one of my favorite places. I’m part Italian and lived in Sicily. I fell in love with the culture – the way of life there – and I can’t wait to have a home there one day. But currently I can’t stop thinking about Paris and also being in the south of France.
Sports Team: LA Lakers
Credits:
Photo: Nick thiessen
MUA/Hair: Nadia Hoecklin
Stylist: Jason Pillay
