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Life and Work with Bethany Anne Lind

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Bethany Anne Lind.

Bethany Anne, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
After majoring in theatre at Campbell University, my husband (Eric Mendenhall – also an actor) and I moved to Atlanta thinking we would get our resumes started here and then head to NYC or Los Angeles. I had very little ambition to do on camera work as I had no training in that area but I quickly began working at some of the great theatres here in Atlanta – Synchronicity, Georgia Ensemble Theatre, Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre, Georgia Shakespeare (now extinct), Theatre in the Square (now extinct), Jewish Theatre of the South (now extinct… do ya see what I’m saying here? Support local theatre, y’all!) and finally (a dream come true!) Alliance Theatre at the Woodruff Arts Center. About 5 or 6 years after moving to Atlanta, I decided I needed to be a bit more ambitious and began pursuing film, TV and regional theatre. I got to do exciting projects in West Palm Beach, DC, and San Diego. Around the same time, the film incentives in Georgia got really good and while I was spending a lot of time in New York trying to see if I could get a career started there, all the work was coming here…

My first TV job was a teeny day player role on Lifetime’s “Drop Dead Diva” but in a crazy work-begats-work situation – the likes of which I have never had since – my director (the lovely Melanie Mayron) decided she really wanted to work with me on her next project… wait for it… Mean Girls 2. Oh. Yes. There is a Mean Girls 2. Tina Fey was not involved. But I was. I played Quinn Shinn, the nerdy school reporter turned (SPOILER ALERT) head mean girl in the end. Despite what anyone may think of the finished product, it was an incredible learning experience for me being plunged into set life for the first time. It’s also still one of my greatest sources of fun to go on twitter and search “Mean Girls 2” and mess with people tweeting shade about it. It amazes and amuses me greatly. Like. I just had to go search for it right now and 4 hours ago someone tweeted “Mean Girls 2 was the biggest disgrace to humanity.” (!!!) I love it! We live in an era of some horrible, horrible, human rights violations… and people still got time to have mad vitriol for a thing I was a part of! What a legacy. I think I’m getting off track here…

About 4 years ago, I got pregnant with my first child and 19 months after he was born, another. A boy and a girl. They are crazy and fun and imaginative and keep me grounded and completely out of my mind. But when I got pregnant, something in me just began to feel really grounded about staying in Atlanta. Eric and I bought a house in EAV, we have a big ol’ garden and chickens and currently the largest sunflowers in the world around my mailbox. The work had been building up until my pregnancies at which point it got pretty slow… as it seems the business is pretty slow to represent pregnant women on screen and even slower to hire actual pregnant women to play them. BUT, 13 days after the birth of my second child I did get an audition for a pregnant character in a new show called “Ozark” and ultimately, got to film 5 episodes in the first season (I am the boat preacher’s wife Grace – for any viewers out there). I’ve done four more plays at the Alliance since I started mom life and just this year, I’ve had major roles in three indie feature films and another sweet recurring guest star role on a show. I feel like it all feeds into each other. The mom-wife-farmer-friend-neighbor-life stuff makes the work richer and vice versa. As with my whole career thus far, I rarely know what 6 months from now will look like, but boy is it exciting and so good.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It’s been TOTALLY smooth.

Except for like not always knowing if I needed to get another day job to pay the bills or being fired by a producer who decided I didn’t look like a teenager all of a sudden (I was 27… so… yeah…) or having to stop filming because I had a giant booger they could see on the monitors or getting un-booked from a job for asking for a 15 minute break every 3 hours to pump breast milk (never fear, I social media shamed them and was paid for the job anyway) or knowing that I am constantly being judged and often hired or not hired for my appearance and trying to remain a sane human being with that knowledge, leaving an audition where the only words said to me were “I like your necklace” or “you should pluck under your eyebrows” or just nothing, no words or leaving my heart and soul on the stage for an audience only to be met with yawns and tepid applause. BUT YES, OTHER THAN THOSE AND A FEW THOUSAND OTHER LITTLE AND BIG THINGS, IT’S BEEN TOTALLY SMOOTH.

My best advice to young women actors would be to work super hard: read, see and do plays, do research, take classes, read books but also, somehow, never let it be all consuming. The more you are passionate about other people, subjects, beautiful life stuff, the richer your work will be. It’s all coming from that soul place deep, deep down in there. Don’t neglect that. Take risks, stand up for yourself, do things that scare you, slow down, stand up for yourself, don’t be afraid to burn a bridge every now and then, stand up for yourself, keep finding out who you are, know your value, know the union rules (even if you’re not a member yet, it’s great to know the standard of how you should be treated) and I don’t know if I’ve mentioned… STAND UP FOR YOURSELF. It’s tough. It is a bumpy, zig-zaggy road. But yeah, it’s so good.

Please tell us about Bethany Anne Lind.
In the theatre world in Atlanta, I’m probably best known for workshopping and performing new work. I love helping playwrights bring their characters to life for the first time. The same has been true recently on the filmmaking side, working closely with the screenwriters and directors. It may sound cliche to say, but I have to think of myself as a chameleon. I always find my characters in my head but they only come to life in my body, the wider range of places I can go both in my head and my body, the more interesting and exciting it is to me. In real life, women who show great strength and great vulnerability fascinate me, I like to bring some combination of that to all of my work.

I get the most random fan mail for my one scene each on The Walking Dead and Stranger Things, but I loved getting arcs on shows like Ozark and another (undisclosed thus far) show this season.

I’m probably best known for my Mean Girls 2 twitter shade though, I have to say.

Were there people and/or experiences you had in your childhood that you feel laid the foundation for your success?
I was homeschooled. I had plenty of socialization through gymnastics and church but I feel like I may have been more free to be weird and imagine outside the box than my peers were. I was encouraged to write, play music, be creative, play outside, all the things that I suppose lead to a healthy imagination.

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Image Credit:
Stranger Things, courtesy of Netflix, Greg Mooney, Ozark, courtesy of Netflix, Turn, courtesy of AMC, courtesy of Arena Stage, Mean Girls 2, courtesy of Paramount

Getting in touch: VoyageATL is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.

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