ALIANDRA CALABRESE - "Playing strong women is a dream come true"

Italian-Australian actress Aliandra Calabrese was born and raised in the sunshine state of Queensland. From a young age, her exploration of her passion for music, acting and dancing grew into a love for performing arts. She started studying music at the age of four and is an AMEB trained pianist. She also studied voice at the Young Conservatorium of Music and graduated in Musical Theatre from the Trinity College of London. She played the lead role in the Australian premiere of Jason Robert Brown's '13 The Musical'.

We talked with Aliandra about her dreams, her career, and her new role in NBC Universal's Joe & Carole TV series.

Aliandra, you are Italian-Australian. Could you please tell us a bit about your background?

I am very proud of my heritage. My mother is Sicilian and my father was born in Torino. I was born in Australia and started speaking English from the age of 4-5, a transitional period I remember acutely well as most people speaking loudly at me in English, hoping that I would understand. I am very grateful to be bilingual. It was such a wonderful and rich upbringing.

When did you decide to become an actress?

I have performed and loved the creative arts for my entire life. I have studied music and played the piano from the age of 4, trained as a singer at the Young Conservatorium of Music, and have my Certificate in Musical Theatre from the Trinity College of London. I spent a lot of time immersing myself in the world of musical theatre and I discovered my love of screen acting a few years ago.

What sort of challenges did you have to face?

I think any person who decides to go into the performing arts and the entertainment industry in general encounters a lot of issues they need to overcome. It is a very difficult industry to be in. Performing is a lot like putting a piece of your heart out into the world and facing rejection, judgement, and criticism on every single part of yourself. It takes a lot of resilience, commitment and passion.

Tell us a bit about your previous career.

I wear many hats you might say, I have a lot of interests and actually formally studied Architecture in addition to my musical and acting endeavours. I can design you a house and sing to you in it!

You are now featured in Joe vs Carole, a USA series based on the smash hit Tiger King. What is your role, there?

I was very fortunate to have been cast as Lauren Lowe in Joe vs Carole alongside my on-screen husband Dean Winters (Jeff Lowe) The dynamic duo takes over ownership of Joe Exotic's Zoo. It has been such a surreal experience not only to have been cast in this huge NBC series alongside a tremendously talented cast, many of whom I have grown up watching and admiring, but particularly interesting to play a real person. For the majority of the time actors play fictional characters, establish their history, motivations, characteristics and relationships, which are usually formed around a character breakdown, etc - that has been written. These are actual people we are playing. It is a completely different ball game to play a real person, and it is so important to always give a lot of consideration and respect to those individuals and be sensitive to the fact that you are portraying someone's real lived experiences.

Soon you will also feature in Darby and Joe, a big production starring fellow Italian-Australian Greta Scacchi. Can you tell us about it?

Being cast alongside Greta Scacchi and Bryan Brown, in Darby & Joan, was another amazing opportunity. Growing up as a little Italian girl watching Greta Scacchi movies - to then being on screen with her - was such a surreal moment for me. I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to work with such immensely talented actors like Greta and Bryan, along with the entire cast and crew of the show. I can't say too much about the show, but it is set in all different parts of Australia and it takes you on quite the adventure with some colourful characters along the way.

Any other future project you would like to talk about?

It is such an exciting time right now in Australia and specifically in Queensland. The work that Screen Queensland does is amazing and their dedication to the film and TV industry has seen our state at the forefront of some of the biggest productions in the world. We are very lucky for the opportunities we have had here and for what is still coming. I can't reveal much about my upcoming projects just yet, but I am really excited for the year ahead.

What would be your dream role?

I think the most interesting and beautiful roles are those that tell important stories, give a voice to those who deserve it, raise awareness and shed light on humanity in that way. Playing strong women is a dream come true. So much of what we see in the world has women represented in a certain way, and in recent years that idea is being broken and redefined. I've been fortunate enough to embody some badass female characters and hope to tell the stories of more of them in the future. (Playing some sort of immortal superhero is also very high up there).