NKD Mag - Issue #46 (April 2015)

APRIL 2015 4 8 10 14 18 20 24 26 32 36 38 48 50 56 founder photographer editors designer writers

lennon & maisy joey graceffa frankie ballard calum worthy alexander koch love and theft amanda steele sam palladio malese jow flor keegan allen striking matches ciara bravo rahul kohli catherine powell catherine powell jordan melendrez catherine powell catherine powell merissa blitz joanna bouras shelby chargin tara devincenzo dustin heveron brittany landau alex lane jordan melendrez catherine powell sam rosenthal riley stenehjem josephine tse

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lennon & maisy Words by JORDAN MELENDREZ | Photos by CATHERINE POWELL | Location ELLISTON PLACE SODA SHOP

To say they harmonize well together is a colossal understatement. It seems logical considering how Lennon and Maisy Stella are siblings, but they’ve never been classically trained. When you first see the two young ladies standing in a white room with a simple studio setup - the set of their latest video - you don’t think too much of it. But then you hear them harmonize on Charli XCX’s “Boom Clap” and you wonder how their voices seem so flawless.

The talented sibling duo shows incredible promise, What is refreshing is how Lennon and Maisy aren’t letting the fame go to their heads. They are still acting their age: 15 and 11, respectively.

And they have the tendency to finish each other’s sentences, with Maisy speaking rapidly and Lennon speaking with a calmness beyond her years.

Lennon and Maisy, originally of Claremont, Canada, a small suburb outside Toronto, grew up around music.

Their parents, Brad and Marylynne Stella, formed the famous two-piece The Stellas. They have taught their daughters everything they know, except the acting.

That was Maisy’s idea.

“I think the music side of it we’ve always been fascinated with,” Lennon says.

“So we were just raised in it and grew up in that. It was kind of just what we assumed we were going to be doing.”

“But as far as the acting stuff, Maisy had always wanted to,” she continues.

“The opportunity presented itself, and Maisy auditioned for Nashville. And then they asked me to come in and audition for it.”

After moving to Nashville permanently in 2009, Lennon and Maisy scored roles on the hit ABC show Nashville in 2012. While their characters were originally supposed to be minor, the show began incorporating them and their singing capabilities. Their characters, Maddie and Daphne, have a slightly different song preference, which can confuse fans.

“We wouldn’t pick the songs Maddy and Daphne sing because it’s our characters singing,” Lennon explains.

“Sometimes that’s hard because it will be on iTunes as Lennon and Maisy, but it’s totally Maddy and Daphne, it’s totally different. So the lines get a little blurred sometimes, which is OK.” “It’s definitely hard having people be like, ‘I love your song ‘Ho Hey’ and stuff like that,’” Maisy adds. “It’s not like, our song, it’s Maddie and Daphne’s song.

It’s kind of different. We still love all the songs that we’ve had to do.”

But over the course of three seasons, Lennon and Maisy’s characteristics and musical tastes are being written into their Nashville roles thanks in large part to executive producer and music producer Buddy Miller.

“We’ve gotten to know Buddy a lot better, so he has gotten to know what music we like, what production we like,” Maisy explains. “He’s gotten to know us a lot. He’s like a second dad to us.”

Lennon agrees, adding that the writers are also learning their personalities and quirks. “They give us cool story lines that they know we would feel comfortable acting,” she says.

As far as Lennon’s character, Maddie, goes, she has stepped up into more of a major character this season. And, as Maisy puts it: “She’s getting a little risqué.”

Lennon laughs and agrees, but adds that she believes it’s Maddie’s way of acting out and being rebellious. “It’s just different. A lot of it is just a fun acting opportunity and challenging, which is so fun because acting is so new to me and Maisy both,” she says. “When there’s a new challenges it’s totally exciting to try them out.”

Another challenge of acting was an inconsistent shooting schedule and missing classes. They both stopped attending public school and started taking online classes this year.

“Sometimes we wouldn’t be there for three weeks, four weeks,” Lennon says about their attendance and random set shooting. “It was hard to find lesson plans because we would miss so much.”

Before Nashville, both Lennon and Maisy had never acted on television, but

they say instantly felt at home.

“The first few days I was like really nervous onset,” Maisy recalls. “And then everyone was so incredibly welcoming.

We walk in and they like hug you.”

While there are only a few actors and actresses in their teens, this has allowed Lennon and Maisy to learned from more seasoned TV veterans such as Charles Esten, whom the girls refer to as Chip.

“Chip is always the best with giving acting advice,” Lennon says. “Me and him have this scene, and he was just like ‘Don’t play the end of the scene at the beginning of the scene.’ And that’s such a big acting thing is like to play it all out and not think about how you’re reacting at the end in the beginning.”

“Continuity, he’s so good at that,” Maisy adds. “He’s been in the industry for so long he just knows.”

It’s hard to remember that just three years ago, Lennon and Maisy’s acting and singing fame came about around the same time. They booked roles on Nashville shortly before releasing their cover of Robyn’s “Call Your Girlfriend” on YouTube. Since releasing the song in 2012, they have received well over 25,000,000 views, many of which occurred before Nashville began and the audience recognized the YouTube sensations.

“Everything we were getting through the video was strictly music because the show hadn’t come out yet,” Lennon says.

It’s hard to believe the young ladies have never been formally trained musically, and they only began working with an acting coach, Bridget Berger, recently. While Maisy does recall starting drumming lessons in Canada, she also remembers only enrolling in a lesson before the family moved south.

“We had serious training of one day,” Maisy says sarcastically. “It was really serious.”

“No formal training,” Lennon notes about their musicianship. “Just learning from the people around us.”

In just a few years, Lennon and Maisy have done more than others have done in their lives: sang at the Grand Ole Opry, appeared for concerts on The NKDMAG.COM

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View and for We Day, a concert that takes place in cities across the continent to inspire young people to take action in global affairs. They’ve attended and performed at the Country Music Awards.

They’ve played dodgeball with Harry Styles. And they are releasing their own children’s book on April 28.

After all of this, they are still motivated and energetic enough to spend their free time writing music.

“Usually just on the weekends we’ll co-write with people just to eventually get a bunch of songs together and album or EP,” Lennon shares, though Maisy doesn’t believe they’ll release anything until next year.

“At this point we have some songs that we love,” Lennon adds. “I just want to have so many to choose from. Just write, write, write, then pick some ones that I prefer more than others.”

Their humbleness and surprise at their fame shows when they talk about their idols and some of the “wow” moments they have experienced. When they performed at a We Day concert, Lennon and Maisy met Neon Trees, one of Maisy’s favorite bands.

“They were like chanting ‘Lennon and Maisy.’ I was actually crying,” she recalls.

“That’s always so refreshing with someone you love so much and respect musically or acting-wise,” Lennon adds.

After being brought up around music and making a name for themselves in the acting industry at such young ages, while still maintain a youthful, humble quality, it seems there is little Lennon and Maisy aren’t capable of achieving.

“To get an album out that I’m super happy with and love everything about it,” Lennon shares about her dreams.

“Honestly, it doesn’t even matter how it does. Just to get one out and feel really great about it.”

Maisy pauses a second before saying her dream might sound strange. “To do a movie with Zooey Deschanel. That’s like my dream because I love her so much.”

For all their natural talent and downto-earth behavior, their dreams could easily become realities. NKD NKDMAG.COM

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JOEY GRACEFFA Words by BRITTANY LANDAU Photos by CATHERINE POWELL

From a young age, Joey Graceffa aspired to be an actor. He would make his own films and have his friends participate in skits. “My stepdad had a camcorder that I would use and finally, I got my own when I was 8 years old,” Joey says. “I was able to make my own little goofy films and just have fun. I guess when you’re a kid, you don’t really think of it as like, ‘Oh, I wanna do this for the rest of my life.’”

The YouTuber was born in Massachusetts, and he lived in an apartment that had paint chips on the walls. Joey ate them, which caused him to suffer from lead poisoning and a learning disability. He found himself in special education classes, which made growing up difficult. “As a kid, you want to fit in and feel like you belong and when you’re separated from everyone else, it makes you feel like you’re less of a person,” he says.

Instead of letting discrimination upset him, he used it as momentum to work harder. “I guess I don’t wish it could have been different because it instilled something in me of knowing that my circumstances were sucky,” he says. “But I was able to work hard and achieve what my goal was.”

When Joey was 12, his mother began drinking more heavily to the point that her alcoholism caused issues with the family. “You lose that parent, and you become the parent because you’re taking care of them, which was a slow progression of me stepping in and having to take care of my mom a lot,” he says. “As a kid, you just want to have that parent you can rely on.”

But Joey found solace in YouTube.

He started a channel consisting of sketches with his friend Brittany Joyal called WinterSpringPro when they were 15. In 2010, Joey and Brittany flew to Los Angeles for VidCon, a convention that hosts content creators and their audiences. They

met LisaNova, co-founder of Maker Studios, a network that provides marketing and services for other creators. She invited them to check out the studio and join as talent. The following winter, they packed up and moved to LA to make YouTube a full-time career. “It was very different for me because my mom had still been dealing with alcoholism, so it was like my new-found freedom and this was my life that I got to steer in the direction that I wanted,” Joey says. “I didn’t have to be a victim of my environment, and I didn’t have to stay in that world forever. I could make something of my own life.”

Joey and Brittany made music video parodies for a year, then he started posting more on his personal channel. In October of 2012, he decided to try daily vlogging for the month.

In January of 2013, Joey resolved to make a vlog daily for the entire year.

He hit 1 million subscribers, which let him dive into other projects.

“I wanted to create something more scripted and high-quality, so I decided to combine two of my favorite TV shows Are You Afraid of the Dark? and Skins into a web series,” Joey says. “I thought of the idea of six teens sitting around a campfire, telling ghost stories, but their stories were actually coming true in an alternate universe.”

Thus, Storytellers came to life.

Making the series was going to cost a considerable amount of money, so he began campaigns on IndieGoGo and Kickstarter, crowdsourcing $150,000.

He created the series, which branched into a six-city sold-out national tour. “I really loved getting to create a world,” he says. “I’d always wanted to be an actor, so I was able to create a role for myself and really fell in love with being on set and acting and becoming a different character.”

Joey and Meghan Camarena, known as Strawburry17, were approached by The Amazing Race to participate on the show. “I got to see

so many parts of the world that I never thought I would be able to,” he recalls. The next year, they asked him to come back for The Amazing Race: All-Stars.

Joey signed a book deal with Simon and Schuster in 2014 for a memoir titled In Real Life: My Journey to a Pixelated World. “It basically means where I started in life and how my world became pixelated and most of the people who know me have only seen me as pixels because they see me on a screen,” he says about the title. “It’s kind of showing what happens behind the screen of my life — the things that they don’t get to see.”

The book, due out May 19, was a therapeutic experience, but it also contains some big reveals that his fans will be excited to read. “Growing up, I felt alone and never really talked about what had been happening in my personal life to anyone,” he says.

“If I had someone that I looked up to and watched on YouTube that openly talked about alcoholism and the other stuff that happens when you’re a teen or family issues, it wouldn’t have made me feel so alone.”

Currently, Joey is working on the second season of Storytellers and he is looking forward to seeing the future of YouTube and what’s in store for its creators. “There’s a lot of us, so it’s easy to feel like it’s a competition between us, but honestly, we’re all on the same team,” he says. “Each step that one YouTuber makes of getting more traditional notability like that helps the rest of us out and it gets us more recognized and respected. So it’s cool to see other people’s success and to see what they’re able to accomplish because in the end, that opens eyes to many more people.”

Just like when he was 8 years old, Joey is still always behind the camera. “I love coming up with worlds and stories, and I love seeing them be made into real life,” he says. “If I could be a creator and an actor, I think I’d be happy.” NKD NKDMAG.COM

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frankie ballard Words by MERISSA BLITZ | Photos by CATHERINE POWELL

“I’ve been here many times. Nice and cold, too, this time of year!”

Frankie Ballard exclaims with a laugh about New York City as he sits at a high table in the lobby of the Row NYC Hotel. His hair is slicked back showing off his chiseled jawline, and he looks dapper in a dark blazer and a blue polka dot button-up shirt.

Peeking out from his tailored jeans, you can see dark brown pointed toe cowboy boots, showing a little of his country side.

“If you’ve ever had a Poptart, you’ve had a taste of my hometown,” Frankie says about Battle Creek, Michigan, home of the Kellogg’s cereal company. He grew up listening to his dad’s favorite musicians — Elvis, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Johnny Norton.

“My dad is a really good singer, and he used to jam a little bit with his buddy down the street for us,” Frankie says. “And when I got old enough I just jumped in and started singing along.”

No one in his family was into music professionally, so Frankie didn’t think that was an option for him. It was just a fun hobby to do in front of friends and family. It wasn’t until Frankie was in high school that he started getting more serious about

playing guitar and writing songs.

Then things changed.

“Once you write a song, the next logical step is you want people to hear it,” Frankie says.

Frankie started seeking out coffee shops that offered songwriter’s nights, and he became comfortable with playing his original pieces live.

He put a band together and started playing anywhere he could as often as he could.

“Birthday parties and weddings and bars and honky tonks — really I was just playing all the time and doing it for a living five, six nights a week,” Frankie says. “I thought it was awesome.”

In 2008, Kenny Chesney came through Grand Rapids, Michigan, with his “Next Big Star” competition, a kind of battle of the bands where people competed for a position to open for him on his tour. Frankie decided to give it a try, and he won.

Instead of playing air guitar in his bedroom or in the shower and imagining that there was a large crowd in front of him, Frankie finally played in front of a large arena full of people.

“I had never done anything like that before, and it really was a turning point for me,” Frankie recalls.

“It really gave me the confidence to NKDMAG.COM

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think, ‘Maybe I should try to take this thing to the next level and not just be a bar man.’”

After that, Frankie started trekking from Michigan to Nashville about four or five days a month to try to meet people who could help further his career. He did that for two years.

“I started writing some songs with the right people, and I got a publishing deal for writing songs,” Frankie says. This led to him ultimately getting signed to Warner Brothers in 2009. “I moved down [to Nashville] then and haven’t looked back.”

Frankie released an EP in 2011, but it didn’t really do much for his career. It wasn’t until Sunshine & Whiskey came out in February of 2014 that people started to take notice.

“I spent almost two years making this album and really poured my heart and soul into the recording process,” Frankie says. “I experimented with different guitar tones and really fiddling around, which is how I wanted to make it.”

His first single, “Helluva Life,” was a big hit and went to number one on the country charts.

“I felt like I lost a lot of momentum and I wasn’t sure if people were going to remember me or not,” Frankie remembers. “And [“Helluva Life”] came out, and everybody really liked it.”

His second single, “Sunshine & Whiskey,” came out last summer and was played on country radio stations.

“I’m just glad that people played it. I’m glad that people loved it and cranked it up and danced to it,” Frankie says. “I just hope that, for my personal career, that it continues that way and that radio still loves what I’m doing and who I am as an artist.”

In January, Frankie joined the Florida Georgia Line tour along with Thomas Rhett. A big tour like their Anything Goes tour is rare in the wintertime, and to play with a 12

country duo as successful as Florida Georgia Line is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Frankie knew this was going to be a great tour.

“It’s been incredible, you know, they’re really on fire right now in the country world, and it’s a hot ticket, so it’s fun to be a part of that,” Frankie explains. “It’s fun to be an opening band on [this tour]. It’s fun to say we’re a part of it. I love the guys.”

This night in particular was going to be Florida Georgia Line’s first headlining show at Madison Square Garden. Frankie, however, is no stranger to the Madison Square Garden stage. Frankie remembers opening up for Bob Seger a couple years ago, particularly the magical moment when Bob introduced Frankie to Bruce Springsteen backstage.

“That was a pretty heavy moment for me,” Frankie says. “I’m excited to be back. I’m excited to go back where he did that and remember that.”

Florida Georgia Line are going to Europe for a few weeks, and Frankie and his band won’t be joining them because he’ll be recording his next album. Now that he’s gained some momentum from Sunshine & Whiskey, Frankie believes he needs to make a follow-up album that is even more successful because it’s the second record thatt makes or breaks a musician. The way they’re making the album, though, isn’t what Frankie is used to.

“We’re kind of taking a risk,” Frankie explains. “It’s a really cool story, but it’s all developing, so I can’t let the cat out of the bag. But I’m really, really excited about not only the songs that we’re going to be recording but the place that we’re going to be recording in.”

Frankie did let it slip that he wouldn’t be recording this album in Nashville, which is somewhat uncommon for a country musician.

“It’s all in the interest of making great music and making something that I think will matter,” Frankie says.

While we’re waiting to find out what his next album is all about, Frankie gave us a music video for his latest single from Sunshine & Whiskey, “Young & Crazy.”

“The first two videos were a production, so this is cool because it’s a lot more raw,” Frankie says about the video. The crew that filmed the video toured with him for three days, recording him and his band at a few different shows, as well as hanging out backstage. The party atmosphere of a concert was the perfect setting for a song that’s all about being carefree and having a good time.

“Some of my favorite memories are of times when things went haywire or things didn’t go as I planned,” Frankie says. “I just feel like so many people protect themselves. They put themselves in such a bubble, and I just don’t think we were designed to live that way.”

The premise of the song is the idea that you have to live life to the fullest while you’re young and do some things that are risky and take chances so that when you’re old you can advise people based on your own experiences.

“I’ve always had a hard time taking advice from people who I don’t feel like have earned the advice they’re giving, and that’s what this song is all about,” Frankie says. “It’s a call to action, if you will.”

As the song goes, “How are you ever going to be old and wise if you’re never young and crazy?”

That’s how Frankie says he lives his life. “I think it’s a good way to live, so I want others to try it,” he says.

Frankie’s journey has required a lot of effort, devotion and a bit of fortunate timing. “I really, truly am thankful for the success, but at the same time, still very hungry for more,” Frankie says. “Now that I have a taste of the other side, I’m hooked.”

There is a lot on Frankie’s plate right now, but he should be able to handle it. NKD

CALUM WORTHY Words by DUSTIN HEVERON | Photos by CATHERINE POWELL

It’s a sunny, 75-degree day in what passes for winter in Southern California, and as I go to sit down with upand-coming entertainment industry talent Calum Worthy, our conversation is interrupted by a couple of fans with an unusual request for Calum: their little daughter would like a picture with him. The unusual part? She’s a big fan, but she’s also a little shy, and she’s half-hidden in the nearby trees, if he wouldn’t mind helping coax her out from her hiding spot. Unfettered by his photoshoot-fresh outfit or his busy schedule of much more adult responsibilities, Calum gets down to the girl’s level, kindly introduces himself and in a moment of reverse psychology that would make Freud proud, asks if she wouldn’t mind taking a picture with him. It’s not long before their impromptu meet-andgreet devolves into a full-on game of hide-and-seek, with Calum and the family taking a picture not just of a TV star and their daughter, but of a family memory in the making and a very special day in the trees in front of the Los Angeles Zoo. With his auburn, well-coiffed hair, dapper V-neck sweater and tailored jeans, Calum is easy to spot in the courtyard of the L.A. Zoo, which makes his spontaneous game of hideand-seek fairly short-lived. Luckily for Calum, hiding is the last thing he plans to do with his career. The 24-year-old, Canadian-born actor — best known for his role of lovable goofball Dez on the Disney Chan-

nel’s Austin & Ally — has been doing anything but hiding in the Hollywood film and television scene.

Already a working actor for over 14 years, Calum is the poster-child (or at 24 is it poster adult?) for the everyman film and TV performer, having appeared in everything from the Jack Black/Steve Martin/Owen Wilson feature comedy The Big Year to network television staples like Supernatural, Smallville, Kyle XY and a bevy of Disney shows.

But his lineage as a performer extends to well before his IMDB credits or his Wikipedia entries. “It all started at birth,” Calum jokes about his history as an actor. “My mom is a director in Canada, she directs these musical productions in Victoria. So I got my start doing that when I was like 4,” Calum recalls. “I was there anyway, so she just put me onstage.” He started auditioning in Vancouver, and shortly after booked his first movie. And he has been onstage (or set) pretty much nonstop ever since. “[My mother] really wanted me to become a doctor or something, but inadvertently was also putting me onstage the whole time,” he recalls. “So I just got drawn towards that.”

But for a 4-year-old pursuing a career in acting, balancing work and life without burning out can be a tricky endeavor. “I’d like to say I had this burning desire from the get-go, but I think it’s just something I always did,” Calum remembers. “I go through these phases, I got really energized

and excited and worked for four years, and then I stopped working for a little bit and got unmotivated and lost confidence and then I got back again.”

Calum says he auditioned consistently throughout his teenage years, but he still yearned for something else. “You go through these periods where you just want to be the normal kid and just go to high school,” he explains. “Then you get really into it and go back and forth.” Ever the one to keep the mood light, Calum quips, “There were girls I liked, so I didn’t want to miss out on that.”

Calum credits his childhood worklife balance for keeping him well rounded as an adult. “I had the best of both worlds, just like Miley Cyrus would say,” Calum jokes.

Having already taken some time off prior to his current filming season of Austin & Ally, Calum believes he is primed and ready for the next phase of his post-A&A career. “I’m probably more motivated now than I have been in my entire life,” he notes. “I’m really enjoying it.”

“I’m really excited about what’s next. I don’t know exactly what it is, I wish I could say, but that’s kind of the hard thing about this industry,” Calum observes. “Even when you’re working you actually don’t know what the next thing is, and even though you have this momentum you have no idea.”

But Calum acknowledges that serendipity opportunity and timing NKDMAG.COM

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played as much a role in his success as his talent and motivation did. “I don’t think in this industry you can congratulate yourself too much, ‘cause so much of it is the right time and the right place, even for big actors,” he says, noting his own luck. “When you’re 10 and you book a project, it’s not like you’re a brilliant actor at that point.”

“It’s a weird industry where you have these really big highs and really big lows, and I think you just kind of hope for the best,” he continues. “You could happen to book the next Star Wars movie or you could not work for a while, and a lot of it is luck of the draw.”

It’s a combination of his wise-beyond-his-years perspective, humility and focus on creating a healthy, positive work environment that has brought Calum and his cast and crew even closer than your average TV family, and what will help guide him as he decides which project he wants to pursue next. “The key that I’ve found is that Austin & Ally is such a family, and we have such an amazing family on set. And I just want to find another family,” Calum notes.

“Of course I want to do great work, but most of the time you spend is with the people,” he adds. “I really just want to find my next family that I can be loved by.”

This doesn’t mean that Calum is resting on his laurels and waiting for the next project to come to him — in addition to writing and producing for Austin & Ally this season and last season, Calum has several other projects either in production or in development at Disney. And as if all that weren’t enough, he just started his own production company.

“I haven’t had a day off in two years,” he says succinctly. “Except maybe Christmas.”

Calum is a man who understands the value of capitalizing on his opportunities, and making the most out of his connections and resources.

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“The beautiful thing with [this fame from Austin & Ally notoriety] is I got this fan base that really started to see me in a certain way, they saw me as this quirky, comedic actor, and that actually is who I really am anyway,” Calum notes. “If I can bring this audience with me and keep working with storytellers that I trust, that’s what I want to do next. I feel very lucky that the character I get to play on TV is also the brand that I want to have as my career.”

Actor, writer, producer, production company founder — with so many earthly frontiers conquered, the only frontier left for Calum to explore might be space. “We just sold an animated show, we sold it to one of the bigger studios,” he states, while respectfully noting that he can’t legally say too much about this particular show because it’s in a developmental stage. But space is where it’s heading “I think it’s really funny,” he assures.

“It’s really, really weird and really funny. I’ve really been enjoying that.”

His show may be set in space, but his business focus is still firmly grounded in the real world. “We have a bunch of shows we’re working on,” he notes. “We have development deals with Disney, with Dreamworks, with Maker [Studios].” When asked if he’s a little Disney-ed out after working with them for so many years, Calum says it’s just the opposite. “Disney was so awesome because they gave me my first TV show that I could run,” he states. “Disney, for some reason, really trusts us — they give us the budget and we get to just be creative.

They just let us run free and it’s been amazing.”

Already familiar with performing on set as an actor and in the writers’ room as a scribe, Calum is enjoying the freedom of creating his own animated show. “It’s surprisingly cool ‘cause you can really be like, ‘Well can we have like a pig fart around in space, literally?’ And they’re like ‘Yeah,’ and we’re like ‘OK, that’s awe-

some.’ You can really just let your imagination run wild.”

Despite his myriad talents and projects, Calum’s philosophy is to keep his brand and voice consistent throughout all his work, no matter the medium. He cites comic legend Jerry Seinfeld, whose antics as the lead character in the popular ’90s sitcom, Seinfeld, have the same tone and feel as Jerry’s latest online video undertaking, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. Calum’s goal is to have a similar “entertainer’s fingerprint” across all his projects so that the qualities people have come to expect from him will continue to delight current fans and draw new ones in.

“I really believe in a brand of a performer, so I really like to have — when it comes to my writing and acting and producing, whether I do a dramatic project or a comedic project — a similar sensibility where people know what to expect from me,” Calum explains. “I could also have some surprises where I catch them off guard.”

One of those surprises may also be that Calum has a horror movie (Blackburn) due out soon. “A bunch of kids get stuck in Alaska, and they have to spend the night in this abandoned mine … and it doesn’t go so well,” he jokes.

“Kids, don’t spend a night in an abandoned mine,” he deadpans.

The opposite of being hidden — in an abandoned mine or anywhere — Calum’s career is only expanding and brightening; there’s no ceiling on in sight. “I really think it’s a great time in the industry,” Calum says. “I think it’s opening up so many doors for creatives. I think as long as you have a voice that you want the world to hear, I think there’s a platform for it.”

One thing is certain: With all his talent and motivation (and maybe a tiny dash of fortune), Calum will be an integral and visible part of the film and TV world, which is going to make him very bad at hide and seek. NKD

alexander koch

Words by SHELBY CHARGIN Photos by CATHERINE POWELL Hair by SARAH JOFFE

From rocky beginnings to a very successful show on CBS, Alexander Koch has seen the full range of the industry. He experienced a few minor setbacks before he relocated from Chicago to Los Angeles and secured his big role in Under the Dome. But it was his first television audition, and he landed it.

Alexander quickly gained traction and love when he started playing Junior Rennie on Under the Dome. He was attracted to the role because of his fascination with Stephen King books, 18

and how it was adapted into the script.

“It was just so different. I was such a big Stephen King fan growing up, and I loved all the short stories,” he says. “I was just excited for it to be a new era of Stephen King TV and films coming out.”

The stories helped him prepare for his role in general. “I just like the character and the story, they’re so interesting.” Alexander’s character, in particular, is an interesting one. Junior Redding is the all-American boy who has been stuck under his father’s roof

his whole life. “Subsequently he has a couple of screws loose … maybe,” Alexander laughs. It’s easy to see how deeply he has delved into his character.

It wasn’t always easy to put his mind into a place where he could really sense Junior, though. “Season one, I used to listen to a lot of music, and just work and scribble down into my script as much as possible,” he explains. “Season two, you know this is my first TV show I’m playing, and this is the longest I’ve ever played one character, so I just trusted myself a little more with certain

things.”

With such an intense and different role than his real-life self, the connections he has made between this character and himself are impressive.

“Learning so much that first year was life changing for me, and then that second year I felt bad,” Alexander says.

“I felt bad for a lot of the stuff that was happening to him, and a lot of bad stuff will continue to happen to him, more so than any other character on the show. I don’t know if he brought it on himself, I don’t if it’s kind of a sins

of the father type of thing, but he will definitely find some new paths this year.”

“I would never do the things that he does,” he adds. “But for me, it always started with what’s at the base of it … and just kind of building up off of that.

Like if this happens to me, what would I do.”

Even after Alexander adjusted to Junior’s personality, there are still twists to come. “He’s going to become more of his own person, away from his father,” Alexander comments. “But everyone is becoming someone new on this show. Everyone is evolving into someone new.”

If fans thought they knew what was coming, Alexander says that season three is about to get weird. “I can’t say too much, but I can say to brush up on your ’70s sci-fi horror,” he says. “If we go the right direction, I think fans are going to be loving it so so much, and just from what they’ve told me I’m so stoked about it, and it feels like a completely different show than what we’ve started on.”

While this may sound concerning — the show taking on a different feel — Alexander trusts the crew. “I think the writers and everybody knows you can only do a couple of seasons of people trapped in one area,” he says. “It needs to turn into something different, and it’s definitely evolving, which is awesome.”

Under the Dome has brought about other amazing opportunities.

In between filming seasons of Under the Dome, Alexander worked on an indie film called Always Shine with Sophia Takal and her husband, Larry.

“We shot it up in Big Sur, and the crew was like six people. I slept on an air mattress under the stairs,” Alexander recalls. “It was the best film experience in terms of, ‘Woah, this is exactly what I want to be doing when I’m 30.’

Like directing or working with writing and just going and just raising enough money and shooting something, and getting talented people involved, and

just going for it.”

He dreams of working behind the scenes on projects. “I want to keep doing acting of course, that’s my first priority,” he notes. “But it would be nice to write or direct or do something different.”

Even his interests embody his wellrounded persona, especially music, which brings out the best in him on and off screen. “I try to go to Lollapalooza every year,” he says. “I play guitar and sing a little bit. I keep buying more and more effects pedals and weird stuff to mess around with. I just have one room in my apartment that’s just kind of the music room that I have weird instruments to mess around with. I don’t know if I’m gonna put anything out ever, but for me it’s just kind of a fun hobby.”

Alexander shows deep dedication to all of his hobbies, whether it’s acting or playing music, so much dedication that once he says it, he feels he must commit to it. “I will go to Lollapalooza,” he says. “I don’t want to like say something and then not follow through.”

One thing he plans to do, though, is stay in Los Angeles because a college friend is going to be a father, and Alexander is going to be a “stand-in uncle.”

“It’s weird just seeing your friends, and now they’re having kids and stuff like that, and some of my friends are getting married,” he says. “I want to do that at some point. But I feel like I’m far away from it. We’ll see. I’m not having kids or getting married in 2015.”

While he’s silly about some goals — climbing Mount Everest backwards and living to 123 — Alexander also very career-oriented and considers long-term goals in ways that many 27-year-old actors don’t. “Just doing projects with directors that are new and up-and-coming,” he says. “I really, really believe in them.”

Alexander is the type of actor whose dedication to his career fits in his ability to be a goofball. But it’s safe to say that when he says he is going to do something, it’ll get done. NKD NKDMAG.COM

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Words by JOANNA BOURAS Photos by CATHERINE POWELL

“We wanted to make something really organic, we wanted to show, ‘Hey this is us, we can sing, here’s our vocals, check it out,” Stephen BarkerLiles says. Stephen and Eric Gunderson, professionally known as Love and Theft, knew their music would never top the charts until it was 100 percent their own work.

Stephen met Eric through mutual friend and artist Canaan Smith.

Eric was doing some producing at the time. About six months later, the two were reintroduced at one of Stephen’s shows. Eric was living in a studio. Stephen lived five houses down. When he reflects on that time, Stephen says is was “awesome but very bad at the same time because we were [in our] early 20s but old enough to drink.”

What began as a group of four musicians quickly dwindled down to a duo. The first member left before the group even signed and the second left after the first album to

pursue his own rock project.

That first record was released by Carolwood Records, an imprint of Disney, which was difficult for the band because they weren’t allowed to sing about drinking or smoking and had to cover up their tattoos and piercings. “They helped us to create a persona that wasn’t totally us, but was a part of us, which was cool,” Eric says.

The label shut down because of political reasons, so the duo negotiated with Sony and signed with RCA Nashville. “It was perfect because Brooks and Dunn had just retired and Montgomery just left,” Stephen explains about other musicians the label previously represented.

The first single the two released by request of the label, “She’s Amazing,” paralleled a radio tour. But Love and Theft had their hearts set on another song. Stephen and Eric — and radio personalities — preferred the song “Angel Eyes” more. This excited NKDMAG.COM

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Stephen and Eric because they had written this song completely on their own. After begging and begging the label finally agreed to switch the single over to “Angel Eyes” in the middle of their radio tour, which is unheard of in the Nashville music industry.

Stephen and Eric knew it was a smart move because the single hit number one on the charts. “It was our first number one,” Stephen says.

“It took a little while, but a hit’s a hit.”

The high didn’t last long, though; the duo didn’t release another song until about four months later, which is strange. This leaves people wondering where they went or what they were doing. At the time, radio stations where getting bombarded with songs from other artists such as Miranda Lambert, Sara Evans and Chris Young. “They got wishy washy [with us] they put out songs that kept dying in the 30s,” Stephen recalls.

After a period of inactivity, they got released from their contract, which came at a good time. Soon Sony Red picked them up for a distribution deal, which gave the duo much more freedom, which is what they had yearned for. After almost three years, Love and Theft finally released their third album, Whiskey On My Breath.

“We wrote every song on it and co-produced it ourselves with artist Josh Leo,” says Stephen, who is a huge fan of Josh Lee (mostly because Josh has his own character on South Park).

“Sony Red gave us money, let us pick what we wanted to do and put it out the way we wanted to,” Stephen says.

Although this was the duo’s third record, it was the first time they were fully in control of the decisions being made. “Even our manager let us do whatever we wanted, which is super rare,” Stephen notes.

When it comes to writing music, the duo does everything together.

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But it wasn’t always this way. A few years back, Eric was having his first child, and Stephen had more free time. Eric’s son was born three months premature, so he had to spend more time at home.

Both members are married with sons. Eric and his wife just celebrated their son’s second birthday, and Stephen’s son is a year old. Last year, the Love and Theft traveled 250 days — a possible strain on any marriage.

“We are very fortunate,” Eric explains. “I think our significant others are very understanding.”

To succeed in this industry, one needs to put most of their time and effort into their craft. “There was a point where I thought I would never get married,” Stephen jokes.

Although working in the music industry is very time consuming, Eric’s philosophy about his career is very straightforward. “It isn’t about balancing,” he says. “We got into it because we love what we do, and we get to do it for a living.”

When it came to choosing songs for the CD, the two tried to select a track list based on three credentials: they were written by both artists, they sounded good without a loop and they didn’t have electric guitar.

Stephen and Eric wanted a record that distinctly showed “who we are and where we are,” as Stephen says.

Stephen says three songs on the record resonate with him most. The first is “Whiskey on My Breath,” the title track. The man singing in the song would rather waste away and lose his wife and family, but he still cares about being accepted into heaven.

His second favorite, which carries a lighter aura, is “Let’s Get Drunk and Make Friends.”

“It doesn’t always have to be the deep, dark, depressing place,” Stephen explains. “It can be positive and a really fun thing if you know how to control it.”

Stephen and Eric agree that their

favorite and most controversial song on the record is “Everybody Drives Drunk.”

“It doesn’t have to be driving drunk on alcohol,” Stephen notes.

“You can be driving drunk on being a cheater [or] a liar, there’s no level of sin, it’s all sin.”

Stephen says that what makes the song so powerful is that it reminds listeners that everyone has their own vice. Stephen is close to a family that has been affected by alcohol abuse.

And one of Stephen’s friends was a passenger in a car that got into an accident that left him greatly injured.

Love and Theft wanted to make sure they didn’t offend anyone with “Everybody Drives Drunk” because the topic is heavy and sensitive.

Many initially judge the song by its title, but that’s what the duo intended. “We played the song at a radio station and people just laughed,” Stephen recollects. “Then we played it, and when we finished no one says a word.”

For now, the duo is thrilled to hear their songs on Sirius XM Radio and for owning their album; it’s cheaper for them and allows them to give more away for free to their fans.

“I bought like 100 myself,” Stephen says. “I want to give [them] away to people because I want them to hear my music. I believe in the record.”

The duo also offers fun packages at their shows if people buy their CD or spend a certain amount of money on merchandise. They meet with fans after shows to sign autographs and take pictures. Sometimes, if the fans are 21, Stephen and Eric will invite them onto their bus to take a shot.

Love and Theft are enjoying every step of their journey toward what they hope leads their second number one hit. If nothing else, they’re making a career out of doing what they love. NKD

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A M A N D A S T E E L E

Words by DUSTIN HEVERON Photos by CATHERINE POWELL Hair & Make-Up by SARAH JOFFE

Adorned in freshly dyed, platinum locks that almost have a tinge of colorful translucence to them, and poised in her makeup chair as if it were a throne for a kingdom only she could see, YouTube sensation and social media maven Amanda Steele bears more than a passing resemblance to the regal and flaxen-haired Princess Targaryen from HBO’s Game of Thrones series.

So much so that when she first opens her mouth to speak to me, I half expect her to bellow, “WHERE ARE MY DRAGONS.” Instead, it comes out more like, “Hi, I’m Amanda.”

And from her pleasant, bubbly demeanor tempered with her raisedright, down-to-earth manners, you’d never guess she’s one of the Internet’s major players, ruling her kingdom of nearly 4.5 million followers across all major social platforms. At 15 years old, Amanda is every bit the lively archetype you’d expect from a connected, well-liked teenage girl, jamming the new Drake mixtape on her Spotify and Snapchatting her sister and crew. But engage her on any of the many topics about which she’s passionate (fashion, travel, hair and makeup to name just a few) and she instantly goes all business on you, with the focus of someone who has been learning, creating and honing her craft for years. Part of the reason for that internal transformation from texting teen to media mogul is because, despite her youth, Amanda has been building her brand (and her expertise) for the better part of a decade.

“Even when I was 8 years old I would be drawing out things because I wanted to be a designer,” Amanda shares. “I was always into fashion and beauty ever since I was so little.”

When Amanda uploaded a YouTube video under the pseudonym MakeupByMandy24 at just 10 years old, she never expected to be a channel that has commanded over 133

million cumulative views — and growing by the second. “I found YouTube, and I found that people were making [makeup tutorials],” she recalls. “I just kept going with it because I liked it and people were watching.”

As she continued, her viewership grew, and her audience spread beyond YouTube to the then-burgeoning social media spaces of Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook. But as with all good things, even a seemingly “overnight” success such as Amanda had her initial hiccups and growing pains. “I try to upload once a week, but I wasn’t going to make things that didn’t make me happy just to put it out there,” she says. “I wanted it to be things that I actually really liked.”

Longtime MakeupByMandy24 aficionados will recall that Amanda had a cheer channel and a sports channel before finding her niche in the makeup/fashion/lifestyle genre.

“As [the channel] evolved I realized that when I was 10 making makeup tutorials they weren’t good makeup tutorials, but what I’m really really into is fashion,” she explains. “I feel like I have better tips in fashion.”

And her fans agree, as a video posted the very day of our interview quickly racked up over 600,000 views in a matter of hours, all of Amanda’s fans excited to tap into her wealth of style knowledge via her “Get Ready with Me” night out video.

But Amanda’s vision extends well beyond just racking up YouTube views and accumulating Instagram followers, as she has already used her caché in the social media realm to enter other areas of exclusivity that might normally be off-limits to the average person. “I’m working on a lot of different things because I’ve been getting a lot of awesome opportunities,” Amanda shares. “I’m going to take advantage of them.”

One such excursion brought her to London, with a front-row seat at the

world famous Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, taking in the latest European trends and fashion fixtures (as well as instantly-legendary performances

by Ed Sheeran, Ariana Grande, and Taylor Swift). “It was crazy — definitely life changing,” Amanda recalls.

“I’ve been watching VS fashion shows for a long time. I think it was the first fashion show I’ve been to and it was a pretty good fashion show.” Amanda goes on to describe the London experience as life — and perspective — changing, but in typical Amanda fashion, she gleaned more from the trip than simply a visit to England.

“That was the first time I’ve been out of the country and it was cool to see how different things were,” Amanda remembers, “It was just nice to experience that and get the idea of fashion shows.”

With such a huge online presence though, Amanda knows she’s as much an influencer as a participant. She recognizes that her legions of fans look to her for guidance on fashion trends and flops. It’s a responsibility she doesn’t take lightly. “I feel pressured to be finding out what’s new and what’s the coolest thing to be wearing ‘cause I want to be first and I want to show people,” Amanda muses. “The style is different there, so I’m thinking, is that what’s next?”

Amid the weight of being one of teen America’s popular trendsetters and jet-setters, it’s easy to forget that Amanda still has to deal with the same everyday activities of your average 15-year-old girl: graduating from high school and preparing to get her driver’s license. In typical Amanda style, the bulk of those activities take place online. Amanda has a DMV app on her iPhone 6 to help her obtain her learner’s permit, and the majority of her high school curriculum is online and independently directed.

“I was like, having to miss school a lot for traveling and other work stuff, and at this point I’ve realized [that

my brand] is a big deal,” she explains.

“If I like put in a lot of effort, I realized it could turn into something more important than going through college and trying to just get a normal job.”

One thing is clear after my evening with Amanda Steele: Whatever the future has in store for her, it will almost certainly not be classifiable as “normal.”

Amanda has no shortage of career options to explore, and plenty of time, connections and resources at her well-manicured fingertips. She points out interests in acting, lifestyle products and even fashion design as just a few areas where she is poised to excel. “I’m working on a clothing line because fashion is something that I’ve been passionate about my whole life,” she says. “I know that’s where I want to go and want to end up.”

Add that to the current line of merchandise available on her website, her popular YouTube meetups and her forthcoming line of makeup products (available from BH Cosmetics and appropriately titled the Makeup by Mandy 24 Palette), and it’s clear that Amanda isn’t slowing down anytime soon.

“The [makeup] palette is very me,” Amanda assures me, once again noting that she isn’t interesting in peddling a product just for consumerism’s sake, but that she wants anything with her name on it to be something she herself would really enjoy and be happy to know her fans were using. It’s that extra consideration that reminds people that Amanda isn’t just in it for the views. She’s in it for the love of creating a brand and lifestyle that she is passionate about and feels confident in sharing with her fans worldwide — whether on or off line.

With drive, talent and passion like that; Amanda’s kingdom will continue expanding exponentially, and any fictional Game of Thrones princess would be proud. All hail Queen Amanda. NKD NKDMAG.COM

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SAM PALLADIO Words & Photos by CATHERINE POWELL Location PINEWOOD SOCIAL

Once upon a time, Sam Palladio had small-town dreams of being a marine biologist. Yet somehow, the Brit ended up in Nashville as a series regular on ABC’s hit drama about the city, as well as a budding music career of his own. I suppose his grandfather is to blame.

I sit with Sam at the trendy Pinewood Social in Nashville on the last Saturday in February. The city is recovering from a recent, out-of-the-norm ice storm earlier this week and the bowling alley/ restaurant is rather quiet considering it is prime brunch time.

Even still, a good percent of the small crowd seem to recognize Sam - many stealing glances while sipping their coffee. To say the city has embraced the television series and its stars would be an understatement. It’s hard to believe that only four years ago Sam was almost completely unknown 26

outside the United Kingdom theater scene.

Sam grew up in Cornwall, England, an area along the southern coastline of England that is known for its wonderful beaches and great wildlife, which influenced Sam’s early career aspirations. His grandfather and uncle were hugely into marine biology and would take Sam snorkeling and swimming when he was a child. He studied in chemistry and biology at college (which students attend when they are 16 to 18 in the United Kingdom). But he was also participating in theater and playing in bands outside of school and was truly enjoying it. “I started studying these sciences and fast realized, ‘I don’t think this is me,’” he recalls. “Basically I just wasn’t clever enough.

My math and chemistry were pretty poor.” As much as Sam enjoyed the fieldwork aspect of

marine biology, he didn’t want to spend years in a lab to get there.

He had a complete revelation and decided he was much better at performing and that he wanted to pursue it.

Sam’s musical aspirations started around 16 when he first began dabbling in songwriting. His second cousin gave Sam an old drum kit and he spent years learning how to play in rhythm. Around the same time, Sam’s father gave him a digital eight-track recorder, which he used to compose songs for the first time.

He was studying Actor Musicianship at Rose Bruford in England, where he was thrown into music classes with musicians who knew how to sight-read, whereas Sam still can’t read a note of music. “I’m more instinctual.

A bedroom guitarist,” he says.

They would compose music for plays and musicals that the school

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was putting on, which gave Sam the opportunity to tinker in all areas of both the music and acting worlds.

He graduated from Rose Bruford in 2008 and went on to do a few years of touring musicals. His first gig was as an understudy in a Barry Manilow musical titled Can’t Smile Without You. He had to learn all of the bands’ parts for the whole show, which forced him to pay attention to the songwriting behind all of the hits. He then went on to a production of Dreamboats and Petticoats, a 1960s rock ‘n’ roll musical that, once again, broadened his musical world. After a few years of theater, Sam decided it was time to give screen acting a go.

“I made this choice that I didn’t want to get pocketed as a musical theater actor,” Sam explains. “It’s a tricky world.”

He was offered another year on Dreamboats and Petticoats but ultimately decided to turn it down.

He started taking classes and attending workshops in London to improve his screen acting abilities. His agent at the time, whom he describes as “an old-fashioned, musical theater agent,” told him he was “a bit nothing-ey” when he approached her about shifting to the screen. He decided it was time to switch agents.

At one of his workshops he met Kelly Hendry, a casting director who introduced him to Michael Ford, who is still Sam’s agent in England today. He then booked a role on Showtime’s Episodes (which Kelly casted) that also featured Matt LeBlanc. Because it was an American television role, it allowed his agents to set up meetings with agents and managers in America. He met his current manager, Brantley Brown, and things felt good for Sam. Too good, for a moment.

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One of the first projects Brantley sent Sam were the Coen Brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis.

“The Coen Brothers are my favorite filmmakers, so I was like ‘First audition for a Coen Brothers film? This is amazing!’” Sam exclaims. He worked extremely hard but didn’t end up getting the part.

The second project Sam was sent was Nashville. He read the script and thought it was the perfect role for him, but he didn’t think he had a chance because it was a huge network show and his American accent wasn’t all that great. At the time, he had just been offered his first film that would be filming in the Arctic Circle in Russia. He did the Nashville audition anyway, but was pretty set on taking the film.

He was still in England at the time, so he auditioned via tape in his bedroom. The scene he was reading was a Scarlett and Gunnar scene where, at the end, Gunnar picks up a guitar and they sing a song. The audition didn’t call for any guitar playing, but he thought he’d do it anyway. Three days later, his manager called saying that ABC loved his audition tape and wanted him to redo them outside his bedroom. He did, and a week later he was offered the role of Gunnar Scott. “I wanted to do that film, but you know, [Nashville was] obviously the much better choice after sitting down and thinking, ‘This could be really big,’” Sam explains.

Over the course of three seasons, Gunnar has developed from the dorky waiter friend to a bigtime songwriter with a troublesome family. “The whole arch has been great for me,” Sam says, “It’s nice to place the underdog. It’s nice to play the guy that you root for.” But he also acknowledges how many missteps Gunnar has

made throughout the series. “He’s sort of the every man,” Sam says.

“He makes mistakes.”

One of season three’s biggest storylines was Gunnar finding out he had a son with his high school sweetheart, only to find out later that the son actually wasn’t his — it was actually his brother’s child.

He was initially unsure about the storyline because he wasn’t sure he wanted Gunnar to be another dad on the show – joining the ranks of Deacon Claybourne (Charles Esten) and Avery Barkley (Jonathan Jackson). Once the writers told him it was all connected to his brother Jason, who passed away in season one, he was sold. “It’s been a nice emotional challenge to reconnect to that loss,” he says.

When he booked Nashville, Sam had no idea how much the show would jump-start his own music career. “When the pilot aired, and the song Clare [Bowen] and I sing, ‘If I Didn’t Know Better,’ went to number one on the country charts that night, it was like ‘what the fuck?’” he recalls.

As the show continued and people were hearing him sing on television, he began playing small gigs around the country. “Suddenly there was this appetite to hear me live,” he says.

Sam took full advantage of his new home in Nashville, and he began writing as often as he could. Fans who have seen him live (or looked up the videos on YouTube) know that Sam has been working on his own music since season one but has yet to put out any music outside of Nashville.

“I’m at a great stage now where I have this big wealth of material, and this will be the year I release something,” Sam says. He just recently finished working on a song about his grandfather titled “Wake Me Up in Nashville,” and

he’s considering putting it out as a free single in the near future.

Sam has been meeting with various music managers so he can put together the right team to help him release music. “For me, because music is the thing I’m most passionate about … Your first record you release is a massive deal,” he says. “And there’s so many ways to do it.” He’s glad he hasn’t rushed anything, because as much as he thought he was ready to release a record after living in Nashville for a year, he realizes now that he wasn’t.

In terms of signing to a label, Sam isn’t sure if that’s something he wants to do yet. He’s spent so much time focusing on the creative aspect of his music career because he didn’t want to just be another actor with a record deal.

“Maybe I can start having a bunch of label meetings, but I may also just give something back,” Sam says. “Obviously the indie model is working nowadays.”

With filming for season three wrapping in mid-April, Sam plans to spend a good chunk of his hiatus time working on his music. But he’s also hoping to film a movie during the break, though nothing is 100 percent locked in yet. While most of his co-stars will be going on an eight-date tour in the spring, Sam opted to only play the New York and Los Angeles dates to leave him more time to work on other projects.

It’s been a wild three years for Sam, and his life and career are nowhere near slowing down.

While the possibility of a fourth season of Nashville is still up in the air, Sam plans to spend a great deal of time in the city regardless of whether he is acting. It’s funny to think he almost spent a month in freezing Russia rather than moving to Tennessee. “Talk about life changing experience,” he says. NKD NKDMAG.COM

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Malese Jow Words by SAM ROSENTHAL Photos by CATHERINE POWELL Hair & Make-Up by SARAH JOFFE

From Emma Roberts’s best friend on Nickelodeon’s Unfabulous to rubbing shoulders with sexy vampires in a matter of years, Malese Jow has taken Hollywood by storm.

Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Malese made the big move to Los Angeles when she was 10 years old to pursue her dream career.

Even though she was young at the time, she knew this is what she was destined to do. “From a young age I was just singing in a high chair.

When I didn’t even know how to talk and form words yet,” Malese says. “Being an entertainer was just in my DNA from day one.”

“As soon as I got a little older I loved performing for my family and commanding attention,” she recalls.

Her family definitely didn’t mind all the performances, and Malese is truly thankful to have such a supportive family.

Landing her breakout role on Nickelodeon’s Unfabulous in 2004 as Geena Fabiano was the moment 32

she knew that she made the right career choice and that this was the right road to go down. “It was so cool to be around kids that kind of understood my passion and shared the same thing,” she remembers. “I was like, ‘I’m doing the right thing, this is great, I feel accepted and understood.’ That was a life-changing experience.”

Her Nickelodeon career didn’t end there: She was cast as Lucy Stone in the hit series Big Time Rush in 2011.“It was fun, I got to have red hair and be goofy and not take myself too seriously, which is always a good thing,” she says.

She says comedy runs through her veins and she truly does love it.

Now, even at 24, Malese has been able to portray teenagers for years because of her young looks. “I can thank my genes for that. I look very young for my age, so I’m able to play high school, hopefully for a long time,” she says. ”That’s given me the opportunity to be on Nickelodeon for a while and be a part of

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that family.”

Although Nickelodeon has felt like home for Malese, she has also found comfort on The CW. Malese quickly became a fan-favorite on The Vampire Diaries as Anna, a teenage vampire who strikes up a romance with Jeremy Gilbert (Steven R. McQueen) and fans were distraught when her character got killed off. But fortunately she was revived. “The fan response to the writers and me were like, ‘What’s happening?’ Petitions, everything it was just crazy,” she explains. “I think the writers heard the outcry and even the crew was upset. They decided to write me back in for season three and close things up a little better.”

Malese says that her role on The Vampire Diaries was not at all what she was expecting. “It was an interesting experience booking it, but it turned into something that I wasn’t even expecting. I thought I was going to be on the show for two to four episodes,” she says. “It turned out being a part of two seasons and being a vampire when that whole thing was popular, so that was very special.”

The transition from Nickelodeon to The CW was exactly what Malese had been hoping for. “I was like on the cusp of 18 at the time, and I’m like, dang, I’ve done all of this kids stuff for so long that I was praying for that one thing that will break me out a little bit and prove to people that I can do this for real,” she says. “The CW is everything to an 18-year-old. It’s everything to anyone.”

After wrapping up with The Vampire Diaries and Big Time Rush, Malese dove into another project on The CW as Julia Yeung on Star-Crossed. “It was great, and the people involved were so great, and we were all very excited,” she says about the short-lived show. “Unfortunately we didn’t make it past one

season, but I feel like we did good with what we had and everyone enjoyed it.”

But like everyone else involved, Malese was disappointed that they weren’t able to explore the story more. “It’s devastating, no matter what your job is, if it’s your passion you give it 100 percent and just hope for the best,” Malese explains.

“In this business, a lot of things are out of your control, and not everything is going to work out and be exactly how you imagined.”

Malese did not let the cancellation Star-Crossed bring her down; she submerged herself in her most recent project, The Flash on The CW where she plays Linda Park.

“I love [Linda], she’s so great. She came at a perfect time,” Malese exclaims. “Everyone involved with that show is so amazing. Not only are they super talented but they’re high energy and excited about what they have.”

The show films in Vancouver, and Malese is crossing her fingers that she’ll return for season two because she loves working with the cast, such as Grant Gustin and Candice Patton. Malese says she hopes to develop her character more, as she feels like she is a good role model for the young people watching the show. “Linda is fun. She’s a strong women, which is good to see on TV,” Malese notes. “She’s secure in her skin; she doesn’t beat around the bush with anything. If she wants something she’s clear about it. She’s a career women, and it’s great to portray her.”

She hopes in upcoming episodes that Linda will stay true to herself.

“I hope she keeps doing the thang.

I love how strong she is. I love how she doesn’t really worry herself with peoples opinions and all the petty drama that’s going on around her,” Malese says. “I just hope that she stays that way and doesn’t become too soft or too persuaded by

things that shouldn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things.”

Although The Flash was already popular when she joined, Malese fit right in. “They already had their family established, and they had their groove, and I was lucky enough to have them welcome me with open arms and be part of the family,” she says, commenting that walking into such a successful show was an honor.

Social media was just gaining more traction when she joined The Vampire Diaries, and Malese shares that that same amount of Twitter attention is given to her because of The Flash. “Fandom’s are huge, so it’s fun to be a part of that world again. But yet, it’s totally different because, you know, vampires versus comic books, it’s like the same, but it’s different in its own way and special in its own way,” she says.

Malese admits that she’s not the best at keeping up with social media. “It’ s so hard to keep up with social media,” she says. “I do the best that I can.”

“I try not to get too involved with reading comments because, you know, there’s positive and there’s negative,” she adds. “I just try to do my part and answer, reply and interact because that’s what it’s all about. I do this to entertain people and get reactions from them.”

Moving forward in life, Malese wants to dive more into another passion of hers: music. “Music is always a constant thing for me; I’m always writing,” she shares. “I’m getting better at guitar and booking shows. That’s always something that’s in the works and I can’t wait for it to be a solid thing and I can release music, so keep your eye out.”

There is not much that Malese isn’t capable of doing, from the acting to music and everything in between. NKD NKDMAG.COM

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flor

About 1,000 miles — people have traveled a shorter distance for their dreams. And for Zach Grace, Dylan William, McKinley Kitts and Kyle Hill, 1,000 miles was a big step.

The four met about an hour east of Portland, Oregon, in a tiny town called Hood River, where they grew up.

They went to a small high school, and listened to all the ’90s alt-rock classics.

Each of them have their own love for the “weird, awesome, beautiful town” that gave them their start, but they all also knew they needed more. Especially where music was involved.

“We knew that in order to make this something we had to be in Los Angeles,” says Zach, the lead vocalist for the band.

So they made a leap of faith and moved down the West Coast to L.A. early last year to work on their music.

While the passion and the drive was there, the rest didn’t all come naturally to the guys, who are all self-taught musicians and “play it by ear,” McKinley, the band’s lead guitarist says.

“It took us a minute to figure out what works well for us, and what we enjoy doing,” Zach says. “For a while we were making music we loved, but it didn’t quite make too much sense.”

Luckily, it all started coming together after the move to L.A., where they met some good people and started to make some connections musically.

“When we moved down here, we got connected with groups of people,” Zach says. “We basically made a little L.A. family. And that’s pretty much the only reason we are all still alive down here, because we found other people to connect with and to be with.”

And at the end of the day, that is what Flor is all about, the guys explain about their band.

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Words by ALEX LANE Photos by CATHERINE POWELL

Growing up as a “millennial,” a generation that does more communicating via text than face-to-face, the guys feel like they are constantly searching for ways to connect with people. But they don’t think they’re alone, either.

We are all looking for someone, Zach says, “to live the human experience with.”

“I want to create that feeling,” he continues. “That connectedness, that closeness. I want to create that family essentially.”

That idea of family and connection is what Flor was born from.

Throughout high school and the couple years that followed before moving to L.A., Flor had attracted attention in and around their hometown. But, with their debut EP Sounds (2015), the guys are generating a following in L.A., too. Which, of course, thrills them.

“The whole reason we’re doing this is because we want to connect,” Zach explains. “Art is an experience between — not just the band — but between the people who are listening.”

Using the usual instruments — guitar, bass and drums — the guys have created a niche sound that makes people listen. Whether it is the synthepop melodies inspired by Years and Years, or the punchy sound of a drum machine reminiscent of Purity Ring’s latest release, Flor has certainly developed their own way to combining their skills to realize a unique texture to their music.

“When you listen to us, I make a very strong point to make sure the melodies sound a little bit off,” Zach shares. “That could be shooting us in the foot longterm, but I don’t want the formula.”

Those “off” melodies, paired with Zach’s distinctive vocals and lyrics,

make for a truly distinct sound that, the guys agree, sets them apart from other groups from the L.A. area.

Zach writes a majority of the lyrics, and then he brings them to the rest of the band. But more often than not, it seems as though they all know what to expect from Zach’s writing sessions, considering the lyrics often stem from personal experiences.

“Dylan pointed at Kyle, because I wrote a few of my songs about Kyle,” Zach explains about his inspirations.

“I like writing about my friends. I like getting in their heads. I take liberties obviously. And I don’t claim to understand people to some insane degree, but I take what I see them going through and try

to offer solutions.”

To be clear: Solving people’s problems is not what the guys are in it for, or at least not in a literal sense.

“I more just want to reach people that need to hear what we’re writing,” Zach notes. “As long as we are influencing someone, making someone’s day. If someone is connecting to what we are singing about, then I’m happy.”

Having that sense of contact as their primary goal has also freed the guys from feeling like they need the support of a major label to be successful.

“Everything that you’re hearing is us,” Zach continues. “All the lyrics, all the sounds, nothing has been tampered with. Everything is strictly the four of us.”

But while having everything riding on your own back is exhilarating and validating when it works, it is also extremely taxing at times.

“In one sense it’s liberating,” Zach explains. “But I feel like I’d be lying if I didn’t say it’s very much a roller coaster ride. There are a lot of ups and downs.

You can feel great about a project, and then as soon as you release a song it doesn’t do as well as you hope, and then the next week it blows up. You’re left just being like, ‘What just happened?’”

Asking that question is not unusual for most musicians. In the entertainment world, things can change overnight for an artist, which the guys understand.

For now, though, they are happy to work on music they enjoy in the hopes that they will connect with new people, because, at the end of the day, they know that the way they feel and see the world is not so different from other millennials who are just looking for a way to belong.

As for the future of Flor, the guys say they are along for the ride.

“I think we go forward with the hope that we get signed,” Zach says.

“But, not letting that be a hindrance either. Like if it’s not happening, we are still going to be doing this. We’ll still be making music and loving every second of it.” NKD NKDMAG.COM

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KEEGAN ALLEN Words & Photos by CATHERINE POWELL Hair & Make-Up by SARAH JOFFE Styling by LINDSEY NOLAN

It’s hard to believe that it’s only been five years since Pretty Little Liars first aired on ABC Family considering most of the show’s mysteries still remain unsolved and honestly, are they ever going to graduate from high school? But in the real world, the cast is definitely seeing the benefits of securing long-term roles on one of television’s most popular shows. In particular, Keegan Allen, who has not only become one of the hottest names in young Hollywood, but a best-selling author. And he’s only 25.

I meet Keegan in the flower district of Downtown Los Angeles in early March — just weeks before the most jaw-dropping episodes of Pretty Little Liars to date. He’s dressed in a simple T-shirt, jeans, a baseball cap on backward and a pair of aviator sunglasses covering his most recognizable features. Around his shoulder is his signature accessory — a camera — complete with a custom strap he helped design.

Inside his backpack is a second

camera he shows off later. This is the norm; he’s had at least one camera by his side for almost his entire life.

“My first memory was the L.A. Riots [in 1992] and my need to photograph them,” Keegan says, adding that he was constantly surrounded by creativity from birth. His father was an actor and his mother was a painter, so Keegan was always encouraged to experiment with art. “It was never a surprise that my parents

would support me in the arts,” he says. He grew up with, and still indulges in, the classic California lifestyle: surfing, skating, getting into “easy trouble.”

Acting was always something that interested Keegan. He grew up watching his father transform into new characters. “I knew him as my father, and then he would become Jerry in Zoo Story,” he recalls. “It would just trip me out for him to become this transient maniac on stage, and then come NKDMAG.COM

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home and be a totally normal, functioning parent.” He found the idea of becoming engulfed in a character alluring, and wanted to be a part of the storytelling aspect of it all.

But cinematography also sparked Keegan’s interested in acting. He began shooting behind-the-scenes photos on a lot of student films and realized he loved monologues. “I realized I really loved the process of becoming a character and thought, ‘Maybe I should try this out and see if I like it even further.’ And I did,” he remembers.

Before he scored his role on Pretty Little Liars, Keegan mostly did stage acting in Los Angeles. He was obsessed with the craft and the process of putting a show together. His time on Pretty Little Liars has unintentionally trained him for recent stage roles. “Even though it’s a heightened show on a platform that is for a certain demographic, I still get to work with [people like] Troian Bellisario, who is an advocate of theater,” he says.

The two often get what Keegan calls “acting boners” over acting coaches or teachers with whom they work.

While theater is still Keegan’s favorite method of acting, he emphasizes how his time on Pretty Little Liars has been nothing but incredible — especially in terms of building up his personal fan base. “It’s the first show in television history to really connect with fans on a personal level through social media, in a way that it becomes a very fandriven show,” Keegan says.

As much as he and his co-stars are on Twitter or Instagram, the show’s creator, Marlene King, and all the writers read through thousands of comments and give the fans what they want to see.

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“They do something that nods to classic cinema in the way where they show the audience the villain and they show the audience the problem, and they let the characters scamper about in the turmoil,” he says admiringly.

Despite the show’s primarily teenage audience, Pretty Little Liars is anything but mindless television. “Don’t get me wrong, I love The Bachelor, and I watch and I hate that I watch it,” Keegan laughs. “But [with Pretty Little Liars] you get sucked into the storyline. People have these crazy theories. It’s a show that makes you think.”

Keegan’s character Toby has gone through an insane journey since season one, where he was pinned with the murder of Alison DiLaurentis. Once his name was cleared he went from the weird neighbor, to the devoted boyfriend, to ‘A’, back to the devoted boyfriend and now has become Rosewood’s latest police officer. For Keegan, the ride has been quite enjoyable. “It’s a gift and a dream as an actor to play all sides of a character,” he says.

“I would never say that Toby has been a really good guy or a really bad guy, but finding a center in which I can grab hold of in certain storylines has been rewarding.”

Before shooting the season five finale, Keegan was one of the few actors on set to be clued in by Marlene on who ‘A’ was, but was obviously sworn to secrecy. “It makes the scenes more exciting to shoot,” he notes. “We all live in our own universe with our characters as we shoot the show since so much exposition is always floating around.”

While the “#BigAReveal” on March 24 resulted in more questions than answers, fans still have two seasons to piece

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together the rest of the puzzle.

While the planned ending of the show is locked away in the writers’ room, Keegan has his own hopes for it. “I would want to see some sort of twist to leave the audience speechless and guessing,” he says. “It’s those cliffhangers that the show is most famous for.”

Prior to Pretty Little Liars, Keegan was active on social media but not nearly as much as he is now. “I like social media because I’m able to promote [my] projects in an intimate way,” Keegan comments. “And also engage with people on a personal level in a way where they don’t feel like fans or followers, they feel more like friends.” He usually checks all his social account multiple times a day, or he allots time at the end of each day to catch up on fans’ comments or the latest trending topics. He’s formed an intimate relationship with his fans, and it was this ability to instantly share media that inspired his photo book, life.love.beauty, which became a national bestseller.

“I wanted something that felt like social media, but the way it was before social media,” Keegan explains. Long before he started his training as an actor, Keegan was taking photographs. He started compiling a photo journal when he was 10-years-old, and after 15 years of work, life. love.beauty. was complete. “I feel like I just put a bookmark between a greater story,” he says of knowing when it was time to release the book.

“I felt like this book was ready for the world when I read through it the first time,” he adds. He’s already working on a second book, which he promises will be “alluring, expressive, dark and filled with photos and mus-

ings about a subject that is everchanging yet hopelessly classic.”

In addition to work he created in his pre-acting days, a good portion of the photographs in life.love.beauty. were taken on various sets he’s worked on in the past few years, including projects he’s worked on with James Franco and Gia Coppola, as well as Small Engine Repair, an off-Broadway play he did in New York last year, and Pretty Little Liars. He expected people to take something very personal from the book and wanted there to be a real emotional connection between him and his readers, but his expectations were surpassed.

“Readers would memorize entire pages out of the book and recite them to me or show off tattoos that they had made,” he says.

“Some people even shared their own personal photo books, journals and poems with me.”

With two seasons of Pretty Little Liars left to film, Keegan’s schedule and fan base are nowhere near slowing down or diminishing. He’s also working on a few projects with James Franco as well as working on music. Most of his songs are published in life.love.beauty., and he is skilled in piano, guitar and composing.

Keegan will continue to photograph every day as a hobby, but he doesn’t see photography ever becoming his main career.

“I do see myself doing editorials and stories, but my main focus will always be bringing characters to life through acting,” he says. Eventually he’d like to step behind the camera and direct, but there are no concrete plans for that in the near future.

Across the board Keegan has one simple goal: to always do good work. So far, he’s been able to achieve that. NKD NKDMAG.COM

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STRIKING MATCHES Words by TARA DEVINCENZO Photos by CATHERINE POWELL

Sarah Zimmermann and Justin Davis were only a few minutes late to the phone call we had scheduled for 1:15 p.m. (pushed from the original 1 p.m. EST) in the midst of juggling radio interviews, their first video premiere and jet lag. The duo had just landed in Detroit from London the same morning their first video from their debut album Nothing But the Silence debuted on MTV’s Country Music Television. Though Justin missed its airing, they were able to bask in the overwhelmingly positive 48

response from fans.

The video for their first single “Hanging On a Lie,” is a homespun portrait of the duo. The only thing that surpasses the apparent fire in their eyes while singing is their deep-seeded passion for playing guitar. The two marched into the Music City when they attended Belmont University in Nashville. Separately, as strangers to the city, they met in class when they were paired for a day-one test of ability that Justin describes somewhat as hazing.

Originally from a small town in Georgia, Justin says all he knew was guitar playing — and it was a maledominated hobby. Sarah, the only guitar-wielding girl in the room, was silently marked with a scarlet letter; no one wanted to be paired with ‘the girl.’ When Justin’s name was called along with Sarah’s for their improv performance, he thought he had received the kiss of death.

His first instinct was to go with what he knew: the blues. When he asked Sarah if she knew how to

play anything, the only response he recalls was his own, as well as all the other skeptics in the class, who were left dumbfounded as Sarah pulled out her guitar slide and got right into it.

“Even then it was sort of this instantaneous, interesting chemistry,” he says. “[We both thought] ‘That was cool, we should do that again.’

And we did.”

They had the luxury of being able to meet up in each other’s dorm rooms to have jam sessions, whether it was playing their favorite music or writing their own. The took some of their freshly created songs out on the town to writers’ rounds where they played with other musicians, and people could hear what they could do.

While making these rounds, the idea of just being musicians started to become something more. They left these creative sessions with people asking what their band name was and when they would be performing again. “We turned into an accidental band in the beginning,” Sarah says.

“We really figured out that that’s what we had wanted all along.”

Justin says the original plan was more about being a musician in the background rather than the artist center stage. “I don’t think either of us really endeavoured to be an artist.

I don’t think being an artist sounded good to us at the time,” he says. “It really wasn’t until we met each other and started playing together that we organically fell into being artists and realized that was what we loved to do.”

“I don’t think either one of us necessarily craves the spotlight,” Sarah adds. “But, being in a duo, you get to share the spotlight, which is nice.”

As they continued to produce content and attract attention, they officially proclaimed themselves a band. About two years after they started, a big name noticed them: Universal Music Publishing.

As country music started to rise,

though they can’t be particularly categorized in that genre, Striking Matches were able to get airtime on ABC’s Nashville. “They [showrunner] just became a big fan of what we were doing and latched on,” Sarah says. “There have been a couple [of episodes] that we’ve been told they’ve wrote scenes around so they can get them in the show.” Though their songs have been featured and performed on the smash-hit show based in the city in which they met, Sarah is completely grounded when saying: “We’ve just written to write and have been really lucky.”

Not only did they have features on prime-time television, but they are also no stranger to the Cathedral of Country Music. The duo clocks in at an impressive 42 performances (and counting) at Nashville’s own Grand Ole Opry. “They kept asking and we kept saying ‘Yes,’” Justin says. “It never gets old. We’re always just as nervous as we were the first time.”

Striking Matches have gained attention from their southern origin, so it would be easy to classify them as country. But that’s not the case.

“I think we have roots in country, but it’s interesting we seem to attract so many fans both in and outside of it,” Justin explains. “I don’t think we do it by the book. It’s always fun to let people call it what they want to.”

Six years of writing and performing in an unidentifiable genre finally had to be broken down into the inaugural sound. “We went into the studio knowing exactly what we wanted to record and how we wanted to do it,” Sarah says. “A lot of the songs we’ve been playing live for a really long time, so we really wanted to capture how we do them live.”

They both agree that they are not looking to just have a sound that is safe in southern tones. After four days of explosive in-house recording, they were settled onto what would become Nothing But the Silence.

“We carry a lot of influences,”

Sarah explains. “With this record we kind of just wanted to make music.

And that’s what we did.”

“Nothing quickly,” Justin continues. “To be a band for six years and just now get to our debut record, it didn’t exactly happen overnight.”

Since they consider much of their identity to be matched by their stage presence, they had to also decide on a band name early on that could match the same intensity. Settling on Striking Matches wasn’t immediate, but it felt the most appropriate.

“We wanted something that was evocative of what we do live, which is always high energy,” Justin says.

“The more we tried it on, it suited us more and more.”

So Sarah and Justin officially became Striking Matches: a duo that started with a little spark but has now become a full-blown force. Just like the making of their album, the road to this first video was a long one. But all the work has been a steady trek.

“Everything feels like it sort of happened for a reason when it was supposed to happen,” Justin explains.

Their consistent climb has been generating a lot of buzz. With mentions as iTunes’ Band to Watch, Buzzfeed’s “a reason for 2015 being the best in music” and the first and only band signed under the rebooted I.R.S. Nashville label, there’s a lot of anticipatory eyes on them.

“I definitely think it’s a challenge,” Justin says. “We want to make good on those projections. We want to prove everybody right.”

They are off to a good start with their first music video, followed closely by the release of the full album in March and topped off by a spring and summer tour. They have a lot of eyes on them from every type of music fan, so the slow and steady burn they have going is beginning to look more like a wildfire.

“The pressure’s on,” Justin says. “But it’s a good pressure.” NKD NKDMAG.COM

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CiaraBravo Words by JOSEPHINE TSE Photos by CATHERINE POWELL Hair & Make-Up by SARAH JOFFE

“If you could put together three music videos for three artists, who would it be?” was the question asked to Ciara Bravo to cap off our conversation. She picked The Killers, Vampire Weekend and Bleachers. And ending anything off with Bleachers is always a good sign.

But more on that later.

Born in Covington, Kentucky, Ciara has been living a busy life right from the start. She began going to school in Ohio while still residing in Kentucky, which exposed her to two different lifestyles between the states. A quiet and docile child, she loved the outdoors and attended camp for 12 years while growing up. Going outside, fishing, horseback riding, climbing trees, exploring the woods. Name anything, because Ciara’s probably tried it.

When she turned 12, an agent approached her mom at a state

fair and talked to them about getting Ciara into the entertainment industry. But he said that she would have to travel to Dallas if she was really going to commit to get into the industry.

That prompted Ciara to go to an expo in Dallas, where she met her manager. Her manager told her that the next step was to fly to Los Angeles to try auditioning for roles. In L.A., she met her current agent.

The first gig she booked was Big Time Rush, where she played Katie Knight, the younger sister of Kendall Knight (Kendall Schmidt). Ciara sent in her audition tape for Big Time Rush and waited. When she was on a school field trip to an Amish town, her mom told her that they had to send over a revised video since she made it to the second round of auditions. “We filmed the revised version in a

grocery store. The grocer had to turn on the generator for us,” she says, laughing. “He thought we were crazy.”

In the end, Ciara didn’t stay on her school trip for long. Her mom picked her up and on the way home, Ciara received a call: she landed the role. “My friends were really supportive, and it was cool that I got to tell them that I was going to be on Big Time Rush,” she says.

However, a young kid living an adult life also comes with dilemmas. Ciara comments that it was hard to get close with anyone from her school because she was constantly working. She moved to Los Angeles to film Big Time Rush and learned firsthand how to balance education with work. “It was overwhelming at first, but I didn’t take the grunt of the fan base because it was the boys who had to deal with the NKDMAG.COM

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screaming fan girls,” she recalls.

“I got to witness it a few steps back. It’s important to be nice to the fans because they’re the ones keeping the show alive.”

Little did she know she was going to have her own share of a fan base, too. Shortly after Big Time Rush ended, Ciara was cast in Fox’s short-lived drama, Red Band Society, a show about teenage patients living together in a pediatric ward. Ciara played Emma, a young girl with an eating disorder.

“It was exciting and really broadened my horizons on an acting front. It was my first time dealing with heavier topics,” Ciara shares.

“I prepared a lot for this role.

I did a lot of research so I could make sure I could do people suffering from eating disorders justice,” she explains. “I read books, talked to people who have experienced it and did research on the Internet. It was enlightening to learn more about this topic. It makes me appreciate life more.”

The reactions Ciara received from viewers to her portrayal of Emma was mainly positive.

“I saw loads of tweets from people who understood what she was going through, and ‘thank you’s’ as well,” she says. “Red Band started off as a happy and healthy show and then deteriorated, really showing how diseases affect people emotionally and mentally.”

Red Band Society was canceled after the first season, but Ciara will never forget about being side by side with her cast members to fight for the show. She describes it as a “great bonding experience,” even though things got messy. But the lessons she learned from the situation was that TV is a business of give and 52

take. She stressed the importance of hearing what everyone has to say. Letting people speak and having an open dialogue is key to making sure all parties involved are as happy as they can be.

Being on Red Band Society allowed Ciara to bond with people her age. She says she enjoys relating to and getting advice from them. Many of the actors and actresses with whom Ciara worked were highly accomplished.

Ciara describes Dave Annable , who played surgeon Dr. Adam McAndrew, as a genuinely kind person, through and through.

“He’s good to the crew, treats everyone with kindness and is always laughing and joking about stuff,” she says. “He’s like the dad on set.”

Academy Award winning actress, Octavia Spencer, also lent her talents to the show. She played Dena Jackson, the head nurse overseeing the pediatric facility. “Octavia is honestly full of the best energy, light spirited and constantly laughing. She’s got a boisterous personality and is so much fun to be around,” Ciara says.

When asked about her favourite quality about Octavia, she says Octavia’s constant storytelling without name dropping, which exemplifies her humbleness. “Octavia has so much to teach about this business because she’s been in it for a very long time. She tells me always to put my own happiness first because that’s best for my mental state.”

When asked about her future plans, she says that she is excited for the rest of 2015 because it’s a year full of new beginnings.

Although productions are currently in ‘pilot season’, Ciara NKDMAG.COM

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has been trying very hard to find new gigs. She just recently booked a reoccuring role on Fox’s Frankenstein. Though the industry can be stressful, Ciara says that once she steps into the room, she quickly remembers why she’s there, as she finds auditions enjoyable. But there is also higher education — off set — to consider.

“College is for sure an option, but I’d like to stay in this industry for as long as I can,” Ciara explains. “And I say that because this industry is such a gamble.”

Currently in her last year of high school, Ciara hopes to be accepted to a university, but she is open to attending community college and then transferring to university.Other than finishing high school, Ciara hopes to start a new show and travel.

Her sister also recently graduated from college and wants to working on the production side of the media industry as a casting director. They have been meaning to create productions together, but they haven’t been able to follow through with their plans because of their busy schedules. However, they’re looking to make video projects in the near future, such as music videos, because that’s where their interests lie. Which ultimately brings us back to her awesome taste in music (because who doesn’t want to shoot, edit and produce stunning music videos for The Killers, Vampire Weekend and Bleachers?)

“My sister and I have a YouTube channel somewhere out there. We always joke about being the Coen Brothers of the music video world,” Ciara says.

“We’re both obsessed with music videos, so writing and directing together would be really fun.” NKD NKDMAG.COM

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RAHUL KOHLI

Words by RILEY STENEHJEM | Photos by CATHERINE POWELL | Hair & Make-Up by SARAH JOFFE

For Rahul Kohli, it all began with Star Wars. “When I saw the original trilogy, I was like, ‘I’m going into moviemaking,’” he recalls.

“I kind of desperately wanted to be a part of that world,” the British actor remarks, “I felt that a career in the movie industry would be the best way for me to be a part of that.” At first, however, Rahul expected to someday make a living working behind the camera instead of in front of it. “I initially thought I was going to go into special effects,” he explains. “I was quite a good artist, so I thought I would go into something a little bit more on the production side. But it wasn’t until I was 15, 16, 17 when I realized I can act.”

It was then that Rahul dropped out of college to pursue formal training in acting, and thus began his career.

During his time in drama school, he honed his skills onstage, but he knew that screen acting was where he wanted his path to lead. “I do enjoy theatre, but it’s not my passion,” Rahul explains. “I grew up on film, and it’s always been my destination. Theater was a means to an end, and it’s the best training you can get.”

Although screen acting has many fundamental differences from the stage, Rahul maintains his training even when acting on camera. “I do enjoy long takes … if we mess up, I don’t like to just pick up on the line, I do like to start the scene again, because I love the flow of it,” he explains. “I think that comes from theater.

I love playing through the narrative as long as possible.”

It may seem obvious that TV and film work lacks the instant gratification an actor receives from the audience of a stage production, but Rahul finds an essence of that in the studio. “The crew technically is the audience,” he remarks. “If I can make the crew giggle, if I can make the cameramen laugh, that’s a good sign that the audience will, too.”

After graduating from acting school, Rahul started working with an agent, and spent the next several years auditioning for TV shows, commercials and feature films. “It was kind of a long struggle,” he recalls.

Like so many others in the industry, finding work is often the hardest part of the job — as Rahul puts it, understanding the “formula,” or the lack thereof.

“If you wanted to be a doctor, if you wanted to be a lawyer, if you do these jobs there is a formula to make that happen,” he explains. “You commit yourself to the right course, if you excel and study hard, you end up with a good grade, you can get a good place and start your journey.”

However, he notes, that is not the case with acting. “You could be the most talented actor, you could kill every audition you go to, you could be with the best agents, you could do all these things, and you could still never, ever get in front of the camera,” Rahul says. “That was kind of tough to accept, because of the lack of control there.”

“A lot of people I spoke to when I was growing up always spoke about luck, and again, those cliches of ‘Being there at the right place and the right time’ and ‘You get that lucky break,’” he adds. “That never settled me — that was something you couldn’t gamble on.”

His eight years of hard work, however, have paid off, as he landed a role on a new CW series called iZombie. The show is a “zombie-comedy-drama,” Rahul says, produced by Diane Ruggiero and Rob Thomas, who also produced Veronica Mars. The show follows the tale of an undead medical student named Liv Moore (Rose McIver). While she is at a party, a zombie virus breaks out, and she becomes a zombie. However, she is still somewhat humane, as long as she eat brains. She begins working at a morgue, where she can access brains of dead people. Rahul plays Dr. Ravi Chakrabarti, the chief medical examiner at the coroner’s office where Liv begins working. “He’s unique on the show in the sense that he’s the only one who knows of her condition,” Rahul comments about his character. “What separates him from everyone else is that he’s very enthusiastic about it. He thinks [Liv]’s like a medical marvel, and he wants to help her, he wants to study her.

And they develop a bond and a very close friendship throughout the season.”

With all roles, Rahul enjoys being well prepared, and he takes time to research his characters. “To get into the character, I’ve been looking for clues about how to play someone,” he says. “I felt like the person’s job said a lot about that person and gives clues as to their personality.”

Since his character on iZombie is a coroner, however, researching this role was a bit darker. “I spent a hell of a lot of time studying pathology, and leading up to the pilot, I interviewed some pathologists to get into their heads and figure out why they do what they do, and how they cope with the grisly bits of the job,” Rahul notes. “I spent a ridiculous amount of time watching real autopsy videos where they would step-by-step take you through human anatomy while cutting up a real body.”

He didn’t even stop there. “When we went to Vancouver I was lucky enough to be taken to a real morgue, so I could spend some time there with a pathologist,” he continues. “I basically asked them a million questions about the most gruesome things, and then she showed me the real bodies that were in the morgue. I got to smell, and see — not touch.”

Diving into the particulars of a character and his line of work is one of the most enjoyable aspects of the job for Rahul. “If I wasn’t an actor, I’d be a police officer,” Rahul says. “I love doing detective work.

It kind of works being an actor, because that’s part of the job. If I’m given a role, I try to do as much as possible. I don’t think everyone has to, but for me, it’s my favorite kind of process, that kind of figuring things out.

“You get a real sense of accomplishment when you’ve felt like you’ve learned something,” he adds.

It doesn’t take weeks of research, however, to figure out the formula Rahul was thinking about for actors. In fact, it’s quite simple: “You have to just know what you’re capable of, what you have to offer, what your weaknesses are, and just work on that, irrespective of when your opportunity’s going to come,” he says. “You just have to grind through that and believe in yourself.” NKD NKDMAG.COM

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