Ask A Muse: DeWanda Wise & Alano Miller
Questions about making work as a multi-hyphenate artist warrant many perspectives — and this is where you’ll find a few. Welcome to “Ask A Muse.”
The Muses: DeWanda Wise & Alano Miller
DeWanda is an actor and producer who has performed in off Broadway theatres and across Netflix in titles such as Fatherhood, Someone Great, and Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It reboot. This summer, she’s taking the reins in Universal’s Jurassic World Dominion — a franchise she thinks is timeless for a few reasons: “One, if you hate dinosaurs, it’s you. And two, I think we need a bit of a reminder of how we treat each other and this planet.” (Source: Vanity Fair)
Alano is an actor, writer, and producer. A lover of all-thing tech, he has an “insatiable appetite” for sci-fi and exploring the ways that technology intersects with our lives and what that means for the future. He recently starred in Dexter: New Blood and Cherish the Day, and previously appeared in the television shows Jane the Virgin and Underground, as well as the movie Loving. (Source: Fanaddicts)
The Question: What advice would you give to yourself if you were emerging into the industry today?
Click play to listen to DeWanda and Alano’s full responses; full transcript also available below
“It’s a beautiful moment to not force.”
“My mom always said, ‘Son, it’s not about how many people are in the audience; it’s about the one that gets their life changed.’ And that to me was a big deal, because you never know the impact you have.”
Ask A Muse: DeWanda Wise
DeWANDA WISE : I’m gonna cheat and say two things. Thing one —
(Alano loving laughs with DeWanda)
They’re both pretty quick.
Thing one is: it’s a beautiful moment to not force. As I was saying, so much of my career path has been intuitive. And I’ve had friends — I have friends in this moment — who are feeling very creative and very spiritually capable of creating and I have friends for whom it’s been a real struggle.
And even for me, my goal with this project, with Jurassic [World Dominion] specifically was: I can be very “this” (makes a narrow gesture), so my goal was like, “Okay, have the space in between. How do I creative multitask?”
And even in the creative multi-task of producing and writing and working on our stuff, of honoring the ebb and flow and being super and radically present with myself to be like, “I don’t got it.” And if I push through — if I’m on that whole (in a mocking voice) “Oh, push through whatever” — it doesn’t serve me in this moment.
So one is just about having that kind of creative intuition in this moment. And —
ALANO MILLER: Knowing when you are.
DeWANDA: Yeah. Knowing when you are in everything that’s happening. Do that daily check in. Take the time and the space to actually like live in the reality of where we’re at so that you can do your work.
And two: Bryce [Dallas Howard] and I talked about this on set the other day a little bit but I go back to this intermittently and I think my goal this last year literally has been kind of the same.
I was thinking a lot about how after I’m done with a project, how to snap back to my life a little faster, spiritually, emotionally, mentally. And so this time last year, I was deep in the muck of where everyone is this year. Literally, the one question, the consideration, that I ask… is: “What is my life?”
And you know, I’ve always been a journaler, I’ve always been kind of a natural documentarian in a certain respect, but there were so many entries this time last year in my journal where I was just like doing my morning routine: I have my coffee and my cat passed unfortunately in January, but my cat would be on my feet or on my lap (Rascal) and I would just write so many entries guys, (laughing), so many entries, where I was like, “This is heaven.”
(DeWanda and Alano laugh playfully)
So many entries where I was just like, “This is the best.”
And really thinking about the most simple, rudimentary, simplistic [things]. (Speaking about the Nine Muses Lab students’ backgrounds on Zoom) That vine. The olive garden vine that you have on your wall. The illustrations you have on your wall.
What is my life? What is my actual, real, non-transactional — career is integrated cause I’m an artist, there’s artistry in everything I do — what is my life?
Me and Bryce have this weird thing in common: we love to do hair. I did Alano’s hair today. That’s my life. (DeWanda laughs)
My real, actual, life. And this is the moment to ask yourself that, to ask what is at the core of who you are, so that in the years that are following, which are going to be a whirlwind and beautiful —
ALANO: Mhm
DeWANDA: — that you always have this center to go back to and go home to. And really making a home inside yourself.
Ask A Muse: Alano Miller
ALANO MILLER: Again, it is about being so genuine and being so open, and so — because you never know. My mom always said that. She’s like, “Son, it’s not about how many people are in the audience; it’s about the one that gets their life changed.” And that to me was a big deal because you never know the impact you have. You never know the kind of connections you can build.
And I’m sitting here, and I’m like wow, you never know the space that you could be in and the people that you could find — your tribe — to keep adding to this thing that can evolve.
And it doesn’t mean that you’ll work with them. It just means that they’ll continue to inspire you, they’ll continue to encourage you, they’ll continue to motivate you, they’ll continue to keep you in the game. Because this is a number’s game and it’s a game —
DeWANDA WISE: of longevity.
ALANO: — where it’s about how long can you be relentless? How can you stay focused? How can you continue to be creative and open?
And it doesn't matter what they tell you about “how to arrive.” Like, “You’ve arrived. You’ve made this moment” — it’s not about that. That shit is fake.
How you arrive is the people that come to you and say, “Thank you. You did this thing and I saw myself,” or “Hey, you know I never saw this point of view,” or “You know I’ve been having a really shitty moment right now and I needed this moment — a break away from life,” and “Thank you for these opportunities.”
And that you got a chance to create and build with artists in all these kinds of space[s] that we’re in now — I mean, this is the moment. And that, to me, is like more… it makes my heart so happy cause it gives me hope for the future versus where we are right now. So all of you, please, I just pray that you see the light at the end of the tunnel and know that it's all for you. You got it. It’s all in you. Please just explore every — leave no stone unturned. Give every ounce that you have because you can and you deserve. And people will hear your story and you deserve your story to be told.
Excerpt from DeWanda Wise and Alano Miller’s Q&A with Bryce Dallas Howard and the Nine Muses Lab
