Today we’d like to introduce you to Amelia Bentley.
Amelia, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I am a first generation American citizen, with parents migrating from the parish of St Mary in Jamaica to the United States. I was born in Mount Vernon, New York, started school in the Bronx and then moved to Lithonia, Georgia shortly after. I always had a strong passion for performance since I was younger. When I was little, I used to say I wanted to be a nurse and a ballerina. But I quickly found out that I gagged at the sight of blood, and I cried so hard in my first ballet lesson that my mom took me out of classes. So, obviously, that wasn’t the pathway for me.
But through school and performance, I found out that those professions are exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to heal people just like a nurse, but through the different stories of performance, I would inhabit, like a ballerina. That is when I fell in love with acting. I did a program called Teen Council through ArtsVibe at the Woodruff Arts Center in Midtown, which showed me the behind the scenes of creating and producing shows and events for metropolitan teens along with the top shows that came through Atlanta to the Alliance Theatre. This program landed me an internship as a teaching assistant for a theatre program at the Alliance Theatre during my junior year of high school (a science and engineering high school, because I swore I was going to be an ecologist or a scientist to make a “real” living, to make my parents proud). My boss during the internship recently graduated from a school called SCAD, which I had never heard of. The Savannah College of Art and Design. I visited the school once and absolutely fell in love. I decided that my passion for acting, for performing arts was worth it. I didn’t want to live my life regretting the things that I didn’t go after, yet truly loved. This school has given me so much! I have presented awards for John David Washington, I acted in a student Emmy Award-winning student-produced, written, acted, and directed sitcom. I have had interviews and auditions with Paramount Studios and BET all in the short span of four years! After many struggles and lessons and auditions and performances and professional jobs, I am now proud to say that I will graduate with a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Performing Arts and a minor in Dramatic Writing on May 31, 2019. I am beyond excited for my future, and I don’t plan on stopping my creative train any time soon.
Has it been a smooth road?
My path has not always been smooth. I try to keep a smile on my face even in the hardest of times because I am a strong believer in God and my faith is larger than my troubles. My parents came from very humble beginnings. When my mom first came to America, she worked as a nanny in Macon, Georgia and then Long Island, New York. She worked hard every single day so that I wouldn’t have to once I grew up. She went to school to become a certified nursing assistant and continued to work hard from there. There were some days in high school that she would take back to back 12-hour shifts at her job, just so we could live comfortably. She raised me after my parents got divorced and taught me so much about life and the importance of making something out of yourself in this world. I have been through so much in terms of people, friends, family, and just overall means to do things because of money, in ways that I don’t even think I can fully express right now. I shouldn’t even be able to afford the school I go to. With my background, I shouldn’t be able to confidently say I am going into a creative career in the entertainment industry, but I have learned and grown and worked and literally bled during some of my shows to become the strong woman I am today. Only God has provided the way for me to get here, and with the amount of work I put in and the passion I am filled with for this thing called performance, nothing can stop me now.
Please tell us more about what you do, what you are currently focused on and most proud of.
I branded myself as Disparate Amelia back in high school. It started off as just doing YouTube videos about silly things and making outfits of the days. Disparate Amelia is funny, is colorful, is wise, is boisterous, dances all the time, and lives her life to the fullest. As I grew into my persona, I realized that being disparate, meaning uniquely different, incomparable, meant stepping into your skin and owning it. I use Disparate Amelia to talk about my life, to chronicle my college journey, to help uplift and support others and as a platform to wholly love and embrace who I am. That is me on social media.
Amelia Bentley is the actor, the businesswoman, the hardworking dedicated queen who puts her foot into everything she does. She still dances a lot. Amelia Bentley got into the showcase program at her school that allowed her to perform in New York, Los Angeles, and Atlanta. I’m in front of industry professionals. Amelia Bentley writes scripts. Amelia Bentley produces cinematography. Amelia Bentley was in a regional Kaiser Permanente commercial in Atlanta. Amelia Bentley has written, directed and acted in a play/variety show. Miss Bentley is the model. The quiet girl in the corner on her phone or computer scheming the 200 plus video ideas she wants to execute. These are the two sides of me.
I am most proud of the commercial I did for Kaiser. Amongst the many things I have done within my school, I feel like it wouldn’t mean much if it just stopped in Savannah. I thank God that I was able to get a job outside of school and even though I didn’t say anything in the commercial, I was the face of a company screening on the television in my hometown. I screamed the first time I saw the commercial on my TV while watching real housewives of Atlanta, then my mom and I started tearing up. It felt great to get a sneak peek of what the industry could bring me. And I am so excited to do more work!
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
After graduation, I plan on moving back to Atlanta. I now reside in Stone Mountain with my mom. I plan on doing an interview with an acting and modeling agency in Atlanta. I will continue to audition and will hopefully break through the film and television industry. In the meantime between time, I will be writing and producing my own material. I plan on starting a web series very soon. I am just ecstatic for my future. I am excited to step into who I am without the reigns of an academic system. I’ve literally been in school since I was three years old and with turning 22 in late June, I’m just blessed for the life I have lived.
Contact Info:
- Email: amelia.bentley23@gmail.com
- Instagram: @DisparateAmelia
- Other: Youtube – Disparate Amelia
Image Credit:
Karlito @kiarito, Melody @melodyjoyco, Geno Murray @g__snaps, Showcase photo is property of SCAD
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