I have often said that in general, I enjoy speaking more with actors who aren't household names than with those who are big stars. Sure, doing a interview with a well-known actor does grab a bit more attention from readers. But thanks to a combination of cautious personal publicists and a fear of saying something that might be seen as "controversial," most stars are carefully prepped to stay on topic no matter what.
Which might be the safe move for someone's career, but it often makes for a boring interview. Which is why I prefer speaking with actors on the way up. They're more open, less cautious about sharing personal thoughts and it's more likely I'll have an actual conversation with them than just listening to a series of well-rehearsed stock answers.
I spoke with actress Carly Roland earlier this week, which is currently appearing as archaeologist Teddi Isaacs in the current season of Dark Winds. She began as a professional ballet dancer where she studied with the American Ballet Theater and Miami City Ballet. But in recent years, she's concentrated on her acting, appearing in a wide range of projects from movies such as 2021's Harper to a string of TV guest roles on everything from Happy! to the upcoming Netflix procedural Pulse.
I spoke with Carly earlier this week about her role on Dark Winds, the challenges of being a guest actor and how being a dancer helped prepare her for her acting career.
The conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
Can you just talk a little bit about how you got this role on Dark Winds? I'm assuming you auditioned. And when you auditioned, what did they tell you about the role? What did they give you to work with?
Sure. That's a great question. I did audition for this role.
It was early last year. And I was so excited to get the audition because I loved the breakdown of the character, Teddy Isaacs. It was a really simple breakdown.
It was just Teddy Isaacs. She is a grad student. She's also the site manager out on the Navajo Reservation. And she works for Dr. Reynolds, who is sort of her mentor, if you will. I got the sense that she was a very intelligent, hardworking, get her hands dirty kind of woman. And definitely someone who's groundbreaking because there's not many female archaeologists out on dig sites in the 70s.
So she was sort of a renegade, if you will. And I thought that was a really exciting prospect to play a character like that.
And it's not a glamorous role at all.
No.
And funny enough, When I auditioned for the part, I didn't get dirty, per se, put dirt on me. I don't normally go to that extreme with stuff. But I kind of forgot that when I got to the set the first day, just how dirty you'll be out there.
So when I went to hair and makeup, and I did the test, I was like, "Oh, wow, yeah. She's dirty, and she's sunburned. And she is she is not glamorous, to say the least." Which, again, for me, I personally loved, because I love getting dirty. And I love parts where you're not necessarily worried about how your hair looks, if that makes sense.
So how do you sort of approach that? Like with Dark Winds? How do you approach I'm going in for X amount of screen time? You want your time to count, but you don't want to be one of those actors that tries to show off to impress people.
Well, thank you. Thank you so much.
I just think that characters like that are the most interesting to me. And again, I think you'll see and I don't know how many episodes you saw on the screeners, but of all the character stories this season, I feel like I serve a very important purpose. So I'm so grateful.
So I don't want to give away too much to people ahead of time. But you're in for a ride.
I read that you started out as a dancer. And I'm fascinated with that because I've talked to a lot of actresses who started as dancers. And one of the things they've told me is that the disciplines that you learn as a dancer really translate pretty well sometimes to acting. This idea of working with an ensemble, of knowing your place in the group, of standing out, of knowing what you're doing so that the whole process doesn't stop because you screwed up somehow. I wonder, do you find that to be the case as well?
Getting back to acting, I'm curious if there is a type of role you'd like to tackle. Not necessarily a specific role of project, I suspect you get asked that a lot. Is there a type of character where you think, you know, it would be fun to just bite into this and see what I could do with it?
Before I wrap this up, I want to talk to you a little bit about your true crime podcast, which is really different than the acting that you're doing. How did you get involved in that?
