Today we’d like to introduce you to Skylar Denney.
Skylar, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
My love affair with acting started at age 10 when I performed in a community theatre production of Peter Pan in my hometown in West Virginia. I was painfully shy as a kid, but there was something about being on stage that made all of that go away. At the time I thought of acting as “becoming someone else” (that mindset has since changed) so on stage I could be this outspoken, confident person even if that wasn’t how I felt in “real life.”
I was never a good singer and since most of the productions in my community theater were musicals, I always ended up playing male roles as a kid because I could just kind of speak sing the songs and not have to belt with some gorgeous soprano voice. Also, if I’m being honest, I always liked the male characters better anyway. They were usually funnier and WAY more interesting than the roles available to the girls. I feel like I learned a lot more about acting from those roles than I would have in the pretty girl roles.
After years of performing in theater productions in community theater, it came time to decide what to do with my life. It took me a while to come around to the idea of pursuing acting as a career because I knew it would be hard, but eventually I realized that I just wouldn’t be happy doing anything else. As a type-A perfectionist I often think about how much easier it would have been to do literally anything else. I excelled at things like math in school because there’s a formula and a solution. Those things are quantifiable while acting and any sort of art is so subjective. Sometimes I joke that I chose this career purely out of masochism because I’m constantly striving to fulfill my perfectionist ways even though there really is no “perfection” in acting. The reality is that I love telling stories and experiencing emotions or challenges outside of what I might experience in my own life. As a very empathetic person, it’s thrilling to me to put myself (mentally) in circumstances other than my own and to take whoever is viewing on that ride with me.
Once I realized all of that, I decided to take a leap and move to Los Angeles to go to college at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts, an acting conservatory. I spent three years training there and learned so much from just doing it every single day. It was amazing and I loved being surrounded by so many passionate artists. After graduating, I struggled in LA for a while before hearing about the film industry in Atlanta. I had a couple of acquaintances from college who had moved here, so I spent a weekend touring around Atlanta, decided to move, and I’ve been in love with this city ever since.
Atlanta has really felt like home so much more than LA ever did. I’ve developed an artistic community here that I love that consistently motivates, inspires, and supports me. I’m constantly frustrated by the lack of fulfilling roles for women, so along with acting, I continue to write and produce my own content with several co-writers and on my own. I’m inspired by the Georgia film industry because it is incredibly diverse and so supportive of Georgia filmmakers. There’s a collective goal here to lift each other up which I NEVER felt in LA, so I hate that the LA film industry looks down on Atlanta in many ways. I’ve met some of the most talented and driven people here.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Ha! Smooth road? Um, no. After graduating college, I quickly realized that this was going to be much harder than I had even imagined (and I had imagined that it would be hard). I remember before graduation our school brought in a bunch of people working in the business who all told us to “get ready for rejection,” but what I realized later was that the rejection wasn’t what was hard for me – it was just not working. I had spent three years performing non-stop, getting to do what I was passionate about every single day. Then, after graduation everything just came to a stand-still. I couldn’t get an agent, so I was only auditioning for crappy projects I could self submit for and was rarely excited about (the characters were typically painfully flat for a cute early-20’s white girl).
After a year and a half in LA without an agent, I signed with someone thinking that my career would finally start, but was disappointed to find that I never went out on auditions. In the six months I was with that agent I think they sent me out once. That’s when I decided it was time for a change to better my career and also to change things up in my personal life, so I moved to Atlanta.
I did start auditioning regularly when I signed with my southeast agent, Sol Talent, which I was very thankful for, but even then it took me two years of auditioning on average 2 to 3 times a week before I booked my first job on Godzilla: King of the Monsters. When I hear people new to Atlanta complain about not having booked anything in three months, I just have to chuckle to myself a bit. It has definitely taken persistence and belief in my dream to stick with it through all those years of not working.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
I’m an actor, writer, director, and improviser. I perform regularly on a couple of improv teams in Atlanta like Big Poppa and Consenting Adults. I love improv as my comedy outlet because I can play big characters and not think about what is “right” or “wrong.” As a writer, I’m working on several short films and sketches. While I love drama and that’s typically what I watch in my free time, comedy does seem to come more easily to me as a writer so I’m constantly striving to find the balance between leaning into what I’m good at and what I really want to do. As an actor, I love gritty, smart, vulnerable characters. People who know themselves and don’t put up with anyone else’s BS.
What are your plans for the future? What are you looking forward to or planning for – any big changes?
Well, I’m getting married in November so I’m definitely looking forward to that!
I’m also producing a short film with my co-writer, Malerie Grady, called Aberration that explores a violent one night stand between two women using movement and dance. We’re currently seeking funding and I’m excited to get that ball really rolling!
I’ve also been working with a company called Respectful Productions exercising my funny bone a bit more and I’m looking forward to collaborating more with them writing, directing, and performing in some new sketches.
And I really can’t wait to see a project that I worked on as an actor in February called The Glorias about the life of Gloria Steinem. She has been an idol of mine for a long time, so it was a real honor to get to work on that story.
I’m happy to be where I am, but I’m constantly striving for the next step in my career, so there’s always something to look forward to. Who knows what will come next!
Contact Info:
- Website: skylardenney.com
- Email: skylardenney1@gmail.com
- Instagram: @skylardenney
Image Credit:
Casey Nelson Photography, Sidarth Kantamneni, Zack Creach
Suggest a story: VoyageATL is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
